This took me HOURS! first I knew I wanted to do a horse somehow since that is my main focus.
First step, choosing a pose. I went through many many photos looking for one I could redo as a simple graphic. I choose a photo of my own horse (there is another image, Boomer, in my portfolio from the same shoot, previous frame) While I was drawing and redrawing the graphic I decided to add the tree.
Carving took about 3 hours with little pumpkin carving knives, Saws, really that I went out & bought at midnight as the grocery store was closing. I did have to modify the horse during carving a little to give it enough support. While I was carving the tree I decided to add a few leaves. The moon and stars were last minute additions.
I shot it the first night at about 2 in the morning. I was unhappy with the results and went to the store the next day to buy a new tripod. My old one suffered a bad break during a snowy night shoot last winter. I rarely use the things but I like to have one so I got one. The second night I had company so I had to wait until late again to shoot the pumpkin. Again about 2 in the morning. I carted this rather large pumpkin all over the yard (half the time with the candle burning) and took tons of pix during the course of an hour. I used a flash light to try some "fill" but the shot I choose was externally illuminated by my porch light, a motion activated light that wouldn't stay off when I wanted it to and I had to move closer to it when I wanted it on.
I added the leaves and only this one shot showed the "star" from the flame. No filters. I brightened the grass in the left corner in PS and worked saturation to my best advantage on the leaves in front of the pumpkin. I cloned out a few carving blemishes (where I didn't follow the dots with the knives) and a few hot pixels.
Good fun, overall. The sad news is because the trunk of the tree was so big and the day time weather was so warm the pumkin withered very quickly and didn't make it to Halloween night!
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great carving job. I like the rays coming off the light too and the leaves in the foreground. The only thing I would change would have been to darken the grasses in the upper left.
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