Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble!

I'm just gonna say it- witches are cool.

My little sister and I shared not only a room, but also a love for all things witchcraft from a young age.  I think it started with our obsession with Joss Wheadon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer t.v. show.  Buffy was, in fact, a vampire slayer- but her best friend Willow was a witch!  We always thought she was way cooler.

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Then Charmed came out.  They're three sisters, all names starting with the letter "P," we're three sisters, all names starting with the letter "K." We were hooked!

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Sabrina the Teenage Witch- every Friday night!

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Hell, we would even watch Bewitched on Nick at Night!

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(We watched both the black and white and color episodes)

We were pretty obsessed, but I will admit that she took it a bit further than I ever did.  In fact, she was so into it, that my mom would take her to a "witch store" a few towns over, where they actually sold crystals and incense and spell books.  (My mom is really cool like that.)

So imagine my pure joy to find out that the third installment of Ryan Murphy's super creepy series would be American Horror Story: Coven.  I can't wait to see Jessica Lange as a witch- she's gonna own it!

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While on our ghost tour in Scotland we heard a ton about witches.  (They usually come up at some point in every ghost tour, just so you're prepared.)  In the U.K., they had their fair share of witch hunts, and we learned some really interesting facts about that time.  Here are a few for your enjoyment:

-Witches were mostly women, but a few men were accused of being witches as well.

-Witches were believed to hex someone by pointing at them.  This is where the whole "pointing is rude" thing came from.

-Pretty much anyone could be accused of being a witch at any time, for any reason.  The hysteria was so insane that people wouldn't think logically about why someone was being accused of being a witch, and just believed that they were one.

-Some places burned their witches.  Others hung them.  But in many places, to find out if someone were a true witch, they would chain their hands and feet together (or in Scotland, they would nail their hands to their knees...) then toss them off into the nearest body of water.  If they floated, they were certainly a witch!  They would be fished out, and properly burned/hung.  If they sunk, well, then, they weren't a witch after all.  The townspeople would fish out the body and give the family a proper burial. As you can imagine, most of them sunk...and as for the floaters- most weren't witches.  Air would get caught under their large dresses as they were tossed into the water, and kept them afloat.

Rough, huh?

Anyway, I'm so excited for AMH: Coven, I just can't wait.  I taped it last night and plan on watching it later tonight with Indy and our favorite Halloween cat:

They're Flying!

This year I was assigned to teach two sections of Digital Photography 2.  I'd been teaching Photo 1 since my hire 5 years ago, and at this point, could teach it in my sleep.  But I was kind of nervous about teaching Photo 2.

Photo 1 is supposed to be all the basics - how to work your camera, how to control your lighting, how to set up a still life, etc.  It's basically "How to Take a Photo" class.  Photo 2 is much more about using what you know to create meaningful, conceptual works of art.  It's basically "Photography as an Art Form" class...which, with high school kids can be kind of tough.

We're four weeks into shooting, and I'm happy to say I've had a lot of success with the kids- but more than that, we've all had so much fun.

Case in point: last week's Levitation Photography assignment.

What is Levitation Photography?  Google it, and be amazed!

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Levitation Photography is basically setting up and editing a shot to make it seem as if a person or object is levitating, or floating in mid air.  It's like magic!  And honestly, it's so easy to do!

Check out some more beautiful examples of levitation photography here.

Here is a very simple tutorial for how to make a person look like they're floating:

 

The sound gets a little weird when he does the photoshop tutorial, but all the basics are there.  He's right- all you need to do the project is a camera, a tripod (or some sturdy surface to rest your camera on while you shoot), your model, and objects for them to sand/lay/rest on.  And yes, you absolutely need two photographs: 1 of the plain background, and 1 of the set-up with your model.

I stressed to my kids that choosing a model who will listen to you, and be a bit expressive was really important.  If you wanted them to look like a floating goddess, they'll have to move their arms and hands and toes just right- you can't be a floating goddess with flat feet and rigid shoulders, you know?

Using the masking tool was one way to edit the photos (as this guy did in the tutorial) however, the only issue with that is, especially outdoors, your light changes from minute to minute.  So if the kids took a lot of time setting up their model, the masking tool would show the change in light very clearly.  What some of my students opted to do was trace and cut their models out with either the pen tool, or the select too (which most of them preferred).

Here's another much more detailed tutorial with tips on doing levitation tricks with objects, and how to adjust small things to make it look super realistic: here. (For some reason, blogger was being cranky and wouldn't let me embed the video.)  But this guy gives some more specific instructions, and his accent is just lovely!

All in all, this was a really fun, and surprisingly quick/simple project to do with my kids.  Some of them took the concepts and really ran with them- we had "ghosts" floating in graveyards and dads floating away with balloons. 

One of the things that made me most happy was how many students returned from a weekend of shooting to say, "My sister/brother/mom/dad/cousin/grandma had so much fun with this project!  I can't wait to show them how they turned out!"  I love a project that gets family and friends involved.  I hope it sparks an interest in photography for them, but also teaches my student that photography is an interactive art- not just a solo one.

So there you have it!  We have a beautiful day upon us (at least we do out here in NJ)- Give some levitation photography a try!