A new Halloween trend has spread across the internet,which entails dressing up as a bedsheet-ghost and producing wispy, festive, and spooky photos. This fad has taken over mainstream platforms like Twitter and TikTok and has reached our remote northwestern community in Bellingham.
Some common themes in this trend are to crush the shadows and give the white tones an emphasized warmth. Many people who shared their renditions of this trend had grainy photos which both gives them an older feel and makes the photos more mysterious and spooky.
The white sheet also reflects light, which means it has a vast range of tones and this results in a pleasing, dynamic blend of white tones. Below are some examples sourced from the internet. However, even in the last week of October before Halloween, this trend has largely come and gone according to a TikTok user who wished to remain anonymous.
https://www.rightthisminute.com/sites/default/files/videos/images/ghostphotoshoot.jpg
The goal was to approach this from a technical aspect rather than a bandwagon effort. So, I cut some eyeholes in a clean white bedsheet and went outside about 90 minutes before sunset for the perfect, bright, gold lighting and got to work. Keep scrolling for a walkthrough of highlights in the editing process as well as some before/afters.
I think one of the drivers in this trend is that the sheet makes the subject almost completely unidentifiable. It distorts the human form so that our eyes don’t instantly recognize proportions. This redefines posing entirely; the use of sunglasses or something on the head can really help draw the eyes towards the minimal details. Having something on the head also helps to keep the sheet in place while moving around. For my images, I decided to use a neutral dark-colored bucket hat and black sunglasses.
The breakdown of the editing relied a lot on modifying the tone curve so that the shadows are heavier and deeper with a little bit of fade. The next step was to use the bright light to give it a washed but warm look. I brought out the orange and yellow colors, lightening some of the hues to contrast the heavy shadows. One huge feature of Lightroom CC that I used is the dehaze slider, which helps give the photo more depth. You can see how I did all of this in a step-by-step screen recording of the edit.
Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFjgaXCqgDk
