Dawn Execution

I went back through my pictures from a photo shoot I did a while ago at a medieval castle in Beersel that’s only a stone’s throw away from home (don’t know why I waited 46 years to get pictures of that AMAZING place)…

There’s a torture chamber that’s not easy to find in the myriad of stairways and turret rooms that looked like it would suit, so I asked my skeleton buddy (bought him at Costco in Montreal for $40 and took him back to Belgium on the plane !!) what he thought of the idea and he just dropped his jaw and said “far-fukkin’-OUT!!”

So we did some shots outside on the patio and in the bedroom in different positions so I’d have options for positioning him in the montage. He was pretty cooperative but got a bit pissy when I told him he wouldn’t get paid. I just told him there was no budget and that seemed to shut him up…

At first I didn’t have a clear idea of what the finished image would be, though the scenario started to evolved as I tried different set ups. Fact is, when I visited that eerie chamber, it was hard not to imagine and actually feel the anguish of torture and executions that happened there in ages past. So I went with that and added some extra elements (like the sword and bondage rings on the walls) to reinforce the story line.

But there was something missing… maybe bats flying round overhead? Of course they needed to be skeletal too, so I searched Google for royalty free bat skeleton images and was totally blown away to find so many to choose from !!
It took absolute ages to isolate all the bones (and that goes for the big guy as well) from the background images and to position everything and balance the lighting of all the elements. But in the end, and in my own distorted and characteristically bent way, I felt it was worth it.
I don’t know how many it’s ultimately gonna appeal to, but it’s my heart felt tribute to my favorite event of the year… Halloween :-
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