The actual joy of Halloween is capturing yourself OR your own self-created creepy atmosphere to go along with what Halloween stands for. This is a bit close to what Katie thinks captures the spirit of Halloween for her, with as little time as possible spent on the photo editing, when she was putting the makeup on. She did the makeup herself.

The above photo is the result of the following extremely basic HDR settings I played with in Photomatix (which comes with some of the most advanced HDR tools on the planet), while working on the original:

• Reduced noise
• Histogram testing (played with the different Luminance, Red, Green and Blue Histogram settings)
• Focused on the Tone Compressor settings instead of the Details Enhancer

Of course, the above photo was what Katie thought portrayed the demise better. My original very basic HDR editing of her original photo was actually focused more on darkness than the redness.

This came from the original image also. With a touch of some very simple HDR techniques in Dynamic Photo HDR, the photo above came to be. That is a bit close to what I originally thought captured (in as little photo-work time as possible, of course) the Halloween spirit for her at that moment.

Here is the main bulk of what I played with very quickly to arrive at the above image:

• Reduced noise.
• Added clarity to the picture.
• De-hazed the areas.
• Changed the light radius, focusing on intensifying it on the right hand side.
• Made the surface texture a less smoth to the right edge and the left sides.

Both of these photos, of course, came from the original image that was taken within 5 seconds of Katie finishing her preliminary makeup and the associated costume. You can notice the blurriness a bit as my Sony Cybershot DSC-W80 choked in the very dark lighting. I hate using flash, so I enjoyed choking the camera. That is when you need to act like a mummy holding the camera if you want the blurriness to disappear altogether OR to at least be less noticeable.

The slaughtering continues, of course, as the above image itself was edited to include Hot Pixels Subtraction, resizing to 1024×768 pixels, and the caption embedding.

Happy Halloween!

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Think the same, exactly the same,
for that is how others will love you.
Stop staring, I don’t feel the same,
for I am not the stereotypical love flu.

The world sees, what it wants to see,
I see, what it wants me to see,
I also see, what I want to see,
for I can see, what is me.

The now is the future,
and the history is now,
for if I can imagine the future,
the future is already history.

Taken wet after a shower. On Flickr. On Facebook. On BrightKite. On Twitter. On MySpace. On TwitPic.

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Using words to contact her tonight,
and the focus is really on this,
Typing to text her at night,
and thinking on the phone like this.

We talk back and forth through words and silence,
and I wonder about all that this phone knows,
sitting here at night laughing with suspense,
thinking of what this phone light really shows.

Let me use the phone to send her a txt,
let it find out what the heart rate is,
this moment is being captured right now,
for the camera knows where the pulse really is.

Taken in Irvine, California. Also on Facebook. On TwitPic. On BrightKite. On MySpace. On Flickr. On Twitter. On Ping.fm.

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Pork pork pork pork pork.

There once was a filthy little pig,
Little piggy started to love the filth,
In filth he lived & slept & played,
filth filth filth filth filth.

The little pig got visitors,
in form of human touristers,
little pig got touched a lot that day,
touch touch touch touch touch.

Little pig asked other animals,
about indecent animal touching,
other animals just laughed at pig,
ha ha ha ha ha.

Other animals told the little pig,
of other things happening to pigs,
touching, getting butchered, and rotting in fridge,
tor ture tor ture tor ture.

While many people loved many pigs,
and kept them as pets and professed love for them,
many people hacked and ate them,
food food food food food.

So little pig thought and thought some more,
he thought till he could think no more,
he found a way to keep humans away,
awaay awaaaaaay awaaaay.

The little pig started rolling in mud,
and rolling in crap & under the doctor’s hut,
even the rolled in factory toxic dumplands and melted nuts,
illness illness illness.

Next day more and more touchy humans came,
all they wanted was to touch for a photo frame,
and one little girl kissed the filthy pig,
eww eww eww eww ewww.

The rest, as they say, is history,
though for the little pig was a mystery,
how people started dying far away,
how how how how how.

Little girl had kissed mommy shoo shoo shoo,
mommy then kissed hubby boo yoohoo,
both parents kissed the smelly son good night,
sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep tight.

The son ran out the next idiotic day,
and kissed many girls that he met at the bay,
and soon it all spread like pigs,
perv perv perv perv perv.

Poor people died left and right,
and little pig’s morale was like an Irish “shite”,
little pig realized his filthiness,
oww eww oww eww owww.

Little pig became very silent,
and kept to himself for many weekends,
he avoided thinking of human beings,
om om om om nom.

While half of the world was panicking,
the other half of the world was frolicking,
Not everyone wanted to hate the pigs,
love thy pig thy pig.

So the little pig dressed up to go to America,
dressed up as a man dressed up as a pig,
little pig went to San Francisco,
hippie pig yippeee kaaaa yaaay.

There little pig was so damningly surprised,
to see no flu masks and no deadly skies,
it wasn’t like what the bastard tv newsman said,
die die tv newsman die.

Less than 1 in 5 thousand had a flu mask,
and even with the cheap Walmart mask they had fun and all,
everyone was living a pigsy life,
walk fun walk fun walk walk.

So the little pig saw happy humans and became happy at it all,
realizing he hadn’t severely traumatized them all,
people still had faith in the skies and the mud,
roll the sky in mud.

So the little pig got ready to go back,
back to his mud filled crappy outback stack,
he wanted to roll in the muddy mud,
roll roll roll roll roll.

As he thought of starting journey back home,
his porky heart leapt like thousand hyper gnomes,
he saw a truck dedicated to loving his existence,
“Pork Love Doesn’t Stop For Swine Flu”.

As the little pig started heading to the airport,
he smelled something and thought “Oh is that my neighbor the oldie goat?”,
he was shocked at seeing people eating fellow pig Mr. Oats,
the horror ohhh ohh horror!

That night little pig got back to his house,
he rolled in the mud confused like a trout,
he was happy to be back and happy to not know,
“Distract me so I forget!” yelled little pig to the neighbor boar.

For little pig thought he should be ashamed,
for causing the decay of human beings,
but humans kill for fun and food,
what to do what to do what to do.

Little pig made a little hopeful wish to the heavens at night,
“Please don’t allow anyone to die all right?”,
With that little pig became happy felt sleepy and went to bed.
pork pork sleep dear pork.

—Taken at 340 Post St, San Francisco, CA 94102 by the Williams-Sonoma store, on June 1st, 2009 at 5:02pm.

On Flickr. On Twitter. On Twitpic. On BrightKite.

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