Creating Your Spooky Photoshoot
With Halloween coming up around the corner we wanted to get in the spirit. Every year we love seeing people create new spooky looks and how they capture all the memories that come with it. Last year, we created a Halloween Styled Shoot that had two concepts, an Alice in Wonderland inspiration and a spooky witch area.
One of my favorite things about creating these scenes is getting creative with it. I think that a lot of people assume that you have to drop major money to do this yourself, when honestly… I mostly used the dollar store and Five Below to curate my props. So if you are looking to go all out this year and create your own set up for a Halloween photoshoot here are our tips.
Plan It Out
Pinterest is your best friend for planning out shoots. Whether you are a fellow photographer or the client or someone who is looking to do everything yourself with a little iPhone photoshoot, Pinterest will be a great guide. I create new boards all the time whenever I have a certain kind of shoot in mind. When we were planning the Halloween sessions I literally just searched Halloween photoshoot in the Pinterest search and got so much inspo. I saved all the pictures that had the feel I was going for. Then I started writing a list of what I would need to bring my vision to life. I knew I wanted skulls and cauldron for the spookier look so that was added to my list. I also added big wish items that I wasn’t sure I would be able to get but if I could then sweeeet (aka dry ice which apparently is hard to come by). Want to see my Pinterest board to help you get started? Check it out: Halloween Pinterest Board
2. Book Any Vendors
Here’s where is starts to come to life a little more, it’s time to book anyone you need to help you with this project! If you’re looking to hire a photographer for this, reach out to who you want ASAP. October is a super busy month with weddings so a lot of photographers have limited availability for weekend sessions. This actually rings true for a lot of vendors (make up artists, prop stylists, etc). Now I will say that your photographers and make-up artists will be so excited to work with you on this because this it truly a creative project. (Need make-up artist recommendations that are local to CT? Here are our picks: CT MUA Recommendations)
If you are a fellow vendor putting together your own Halloween Styled Shoot, this is the time to find your models. Instagram is a great place to put out a model call to get people interested. I personally love working with potential clients or past clients for my models rather than professional models if I have a choice (though this is very dependent on the look I’m going for). For example, if I want this to be based around a family or a couple then I like to source my models from potential/past clients. If I am looking to turn this into more of an editorial styled shoot, professional models are good to choose.
3. Shopping Time!
Okay, here’s my absolute favorite part besides actually photographing the session. I love shopping for props, so much so that Jack usually has to tell me to cool it. I won’t lie, I can totally go overboard and buy hundreds of dollars of props. So before I go shopping, I give myself a hard budget that includes props and outfits. Normally my budget is around $150. Now some people may think that is too much, but if you talk to another photographer/event stylist they will probably tell you that is incredibly low. My big secret: thrifting and dollar stores. Most of my outfits come from Goodwill or my secret local fave, Retail101. I will also get a lot of my props from Goodwill too. If I’m looking for something super specific or a little higher quality than dollar store/Five Below quality, then I’ll take a trip to Marshalls/Homegoods/Target/Michaels. I really try to stay out of these places though as they can eat up my budget in about five glances around the store. Obviously for a Halloween shoot, there are certain items that are obviously only good for Halloween (skulls, spell books, scary masks, etc). But my big secret, buy props that you can reuse for other shoots/home decorating. For example, those candles were a little splurge. I got them from the Hearth and Home section in Target but I have used them to decorate our kitchen and in other styled shoots that have nothing to do with Halloween. The table that we have everything on in the spooky set up was a great find for us; $5 from Goodwill. This table we have a major love hate relationship with because the top is all scratched, it’s actually super ugly, and super heavy. So we know that anytime we use it we just need to cover it (i’ll actually use clearance fabric from Joanne’s for a “table cloth”). For the Alice in Wonderland inspired setup, we literally used one of those ugly 6ft foldable tables that we have for parties. I just threw a $1 paper table cloth on that and I must say, it’s been one of my favorite tables I’ve styled. So you can definitely get super creative with cheap props and make really nice looking set ups.
