This Year's Pumpkin Carvings

Every year my wife and I will go to a local farm to pick out a few pumpkins to carve. And every year I'll take pictures of our creation. This year we found a couple patterns on-line to trace and as always the third pumpkin would be a freehand carving by myself.

It is fun tradition and the photography part can always pose some unique challenges, especially when the amount of candle light varies greatly between patterns. The camera can also pose a challenge, such as last year when I only had the ability to control exposure compensation with my compact Canon SD950. This year, with the Nikon DSLR, I could control everything if needed.

My favorite of the bunch turned out to be a surprise favorite, as the image did not look that great on the LCD preview. A 6 second exposure at f/5.6 gives this image a warm orange glow all around, an effect I was not going for intentionally - but really like the end result.

Being able to combine a hobby with family traditions is always a plus, and makes the hobby more enjoyable as it doesn't eat away time better spent with family.

Blessings,

Jesse