Hi I'm Kelly Jean and I'm the horror photographer and we're here in Stockhill
woods in Somerset today just getting a few horror portrait setups ready for Halloween.
My biggest inspiration for horror photography is horror movies.
I would never let my kids watch horror movies as young as I did. My favourite sort of genre
of horror movies are like folk more cult to horror but also my nightmares and sleep
paralysis I tend to make into horror photos. I feel like it's a way for me to just make them
less powerful. I do have a series that sort of delves into mental health as well so I try to
use my photography to help me process things that I'm going through like mentally as well
And if you wanted to sort of put your hands in the air
okay I think we're done with those ones shall we go into the woods
I'm an over preparer so I like to have a whole mood board before I even start
any preparing. I also have a book with like lots of different shot ideas in it I tend to
write an entire list of exactly what frames I want to get so I don't forget any of the
single shots that I want to take. I think first will try and do the portrait of you
with all the dead bodies around you so and then we'll do like the ghosty stuff as well
wearing the same white dress yeah also I want to try another one of those levitation shots
yeah and with the with the LED candles we'll have like lying around as well. But then when
I'm on the shoot I might get inspired to do an another shot that's different so I don't always
have to stick to the list but I like to have a shot list just so I don't forget anything and
also scouting the location is really important so I tend to shoot in this woods quite a lot
because there's lots of different spots here but finding the right location for the right shot is
really really important and obviously lots of free discussion with the model or the client
about what's going to happen and what I need them to do because obviously it's a lot of lying down
on the ground and getting fake blood and stuff on them and stuff so it's very important to like
um have a conversation about that and find out what they're really comfortable with.
You could always do it in front of that part so oh wow okay that's even better than I imagined
that's cool. All the props and the costumes and all the little bits like that I've collected
over the years. So I have to prepare exactly what I'm gonna bring specifically to that shoot. I do
make a lot of stuff so I can make like bits of costumes, for example, I make I make and paint
masks as well as like costume bits as well and other bits like candles and things you can just
get anywhere. Everywhere I go I see places that I want to shoot and it annoys everyone in my life.
I want um
lots of multiple versions of Nikki so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put my camera on a
tripod I'm going to use a remote shutter and then I'm going to do several layers and then composite
them together afterwards in post-production but basically I want lots of dead versions of Nikki
and I want her walking through a pathway of dead versions of herself so basically.
Um I'm gonna use my 6D Mark II um because I like the flip screen
um so and I'm going to use my remote shutter on that one and the lens is at 20mm at the moment
so I get a quite a wide frame for that one because I want lots of I want Nikki to be in
lots of different places in this shot. I have got an ISO 2000 because we're literally in the woods
I've popped the aperture at 5.6 just that I've got enough depth in it and my shutter speed is
a 1/125 seconds because I don't want it to be too fast but I don't want to be just too slow either.
Okay, ready to go.
A lot of my ghosty images I use a slow shutter speed. I'm going to put it on
I think a four here so one over four I think we'll just try that one first. So we'll just see if that
works and then get some movement and stuff. Dance around remember when we did that sort of
circle of witches and you was yes so we'll try something like that. Yeah that works perfectly
In terms of equipment I generally use two different cameras so when I do handheld shots
I use my Canon 5D Mark IV and for anything that's on a tripod that requires a remote shutter I use
my 6D Mark II so that I can use the flip screen because sometimes I won't necessarily be at the
camera so I want to like flip the screen and see the image from a different angle I generally use a
50mm lens and a 16-35mm because I do prefer wider shots. Some shoots like this I tend to prefer to
use second hand lenses just because I'm working with the environment a lot more so it's a lot more
mudders and more chance of lenses getting broken I might be using fake blood and so I don't want to
get brand new really expensive lenses like ruined. I have like other things as well like a Lensbaby
and stuff that I like to like crack out now and again just for like that extra like creep factor.
The post-production I tend to take out quite a lot of the colors so I don't want it to be too
green so I want it to look more um desolate and quite dead I spend a lot of time actually putting
composites together where I use layer masks getting all the pictures of if there's like
several versions of someone in the same frame and I tend to do a lot of that as well. For
some images I might even remove the pupils from someone's eyes for example or I might add a little
bit of like smoke or fog in or some light rays or something just to give it a bit of extra depth.
For this one I've painted up a rabbit mask made it look quite distressed and I just wanted Nikki
to be sort of in the mask but looking quite ghostly as well just to give it that sort of
uneasy feeling you know when someone's wearing a mask and you don't quite know what their emotions
are and what they're going to do next. For these shots I actually used two seconds. I was getting
Nikki to look at the camera for a portion of those two seconds then move very quickly and
then stay still again so we can get two different versions of her in the same shot in detail but
with that sort of bit of blur in between. I think we're done with those ones perfect
so I think we'll pack up and go to like the next location now.
I'm just going to give Nikki a lantern with a candle in it and I'm just gonna get her to
sort of wander around the woods or do some like sort of dark sort of ethereal looking portraits
just using the landscape in the backdrop. So I want you to just like look around maybe hold
the lantern out quite a bit as well yeah yes I can get all the back backgrounds.
My top tips for shooting horror photography definitely have a book that you can write
down all of your ideas in often you might go through a creative rut or you're on the shoot
and you can't think on the spot of like what you want to actually shoot so it's
really good to have a book full of your ideas. Another tip I would say is to make
sure you have a bit of a storyboard before you plan the shoot because with horror photography
you don't just want to take a plain photo of someone in a creepy costume it's really
important to have a story in the image so that you create that sort of feeling of
dread and you don't just want a plain shot that might catch someone's eye but it's
not going to fill the viewer with that sort of the dread and fear that you want them to have.
Thank you for watching. I'm Kelly Jean you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok at
kellyjeanhorror and don't forget to subscribe to MPB's YouTube channel. Happy Halloween!