Jack o' lanterns

[Dennis Bishop]

Every year in early October, the Great Stone Wall Pumpkin Festival is held on the grounds of a museum in southeastern Michigan. It actually supports charity and is much more benign than this image might suggest. Flames are restricted to the candles inside the carved pumpkins.

The Jack o' lanterns are from a photo taken last year. What you see is on the order of 5% of the original image.
ISO 100, 30 seconds, f/8, 17mm

The sky was taken almost exactly 10 years before at a different location.
ISO 200, 0.8 second, f/5.3, 230mm

Alien Skin Eye Candy for the flames (5 layers so the flames could be adjusted for each pumpkin -- needed to mask all layers so the others could still be seen)
Nik Color Efex 4 -- Reflector Efex / Glamour Glow / Dark Contrasts all as one layer
Then, the sky was added.
Uniform gradient vignette all the way around plus some additional darkening of the sky in the upper right corner

[Brendan Dozier]

This is wild looking and nicely composed, Dennis. Great base image, and nice job with your processing. Wondering about trying to darken the sky some more and give the moon just a little bit more glow to it. Nice work!

[Norm Dulak]

Very nice Dennis. And how appropriate with the approach of Halloween!

I like it very much as it is. But if as Brendan has suggested you brightened the moon, the result might be interesting.

Norm

[Dennis Bishop]

Thank you, Brendan. I didn't want to brighten the sky, but that was a great suggestion about the moon. I applied Nik Color Efex Glamour Glow only on the moon. Then, again only on the moon, I played with the white and midtone sliders of Levels. Bringing them close together on the right side of the curve added some color and a bit of contrast. You were right. It looks better this way.

[Julie Kenward]

That is a great Halloween image, Dennis! Only other suggestion I have would be to take a small slice off the bottom so the pumpkin on the right side of the bottom of the frame loses that "hole". Either that, or clone it over so your eye doesn't leave the frame wondering what's going on down there.

Really nice play with the flames!

[John Storjohann]

Dennis, I really like this image...it is, in many ways, the essence of Halloween...great base image, great composition, wonderful job of combining the base image with the sky you envisioned, wonderful processing...there's just a lot of good things going on. I'd take another approach to the moon...for me, although the brightening helped, it was more about the lack of contrast from the "white" of the moon and the surrounding "seas" and textures...it lacks that feeling of depth...and Julie makes a good suggestion regarding the crop...but whatever direction you take (or if you just leave it as is!), well done!

[Mitch Carucci]

This is a great Halloween image! Very good processing.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Dennis, this is awesome. Love your creativity with it! Great work!

[Brendan Dozier]

This is what I was thinking of, Dennis. Hope you don't mind, but thought it would be easier to show you. Just added a bit of contrast and darkened the shadow areas of the sky to give it a little more drama. Added some contrast to moon to give it a little more glow and detail. Then just cloned in a bit of clouds around the edges of the moon to give it a little dimension. Cropped a little off bottom per Jules suggestion and a bit off sides.

[Dennis Bishop]

This is what I was thinking of, Dennis. Hope you don't mind, but thought it would be easier to show you. Just added a bit of contrast and darkened the shadow areas of the sky to give it a little more drama. Added some contrast to moon to give it a little more glow and detail. Then just cloned in a bit of clouds around the edges of the moon to give it a little dimension. Cropped a little off bottom per Jules suggestion and a bit off sides.

Mind??? Not at all. Thanks for doing it. The sky is certainly more dramatic this way, and pulling some clouds over the moon was a clever idea. I hesitated to do too much to the sky and moon because that might detract from the main subject. However, I might just go back and look at some sort of compromise. If I do, I'll take a look at Jules' idea of cloning out the hole in the pumpkin on the right.

Why did I say "might?" That's silly. I should pretend it's a Nike ad and just do it.

[denise ippolito]

Dennis, The last repost is great! I like the added depth. Very creative and a great bunch of suggestions!

[Indranil Sircar]

This is awesome, Dennis. Not much I can add Love the depth and color of the final repost.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Dennis, late as usual, but I think I'd like a crop in between Pane #4 and Brendan's version. This is wonderfully creative and a great Halloween image

[Judy Howle]

One of the best Halloween images I've seen! Excellent base image and processing!

[Ken Childs]

Hey Dennis, I really liked the OP and each new version took it up a notch. Brendan's version took care of any minor criticisms I might have come up with.
I also think a nice vertical could be had in the OP by cropping a little off the right and about 25% from the left....just to the left of the largest pumpkin.