Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween and Anniversary To My First Bride and Groom

It was three years ago today that I shot my first wedding as the primary photographer and what a lucky photographer I was to have that wedding be my cherry popper. I had shot several weddings as a second and third shooter, but as the primary I was a virgin before this event.

Nicki and Rich are a wonderful couple. He is a musician and she is a horror-movie-loving-comic-book-collecting-trekkie-fanatic that truly go together like bacon and... well bacon goes with anything now doesn't it. They are like bacon with a side of bacon.

Their wedding was simple, sweet and matched their personalities to a tee. They were married on Halloween. It was hailed as a "Converse" wedding, which means all guests were asked to wear Converse Shoes, just like Rich is wearing in the image on the left. Yup. This is what the bride and groom wore for their wedding. How absolutely cool is that.

Most guests did wear their converse shoes as well as Halloween costumes.

Nicki and Rich didn't want anything too fancy for the photos, but I couldn't help myself but play a little. It was a little awkward to ask Nicki to climb up on the pool table, she was wearing a skirt after all.

But with a little help from friends, she climbed up assumed the pose and I was able to capture this sweet moment.

Congratulations Nicki and Rich. Three years ago today you both said I do and have been doing it ever since. Best wishes to both of you in the coming years of your lives together. May those year be filled with the happiness and joy you both more than deserve.

So three years later, and I am no longer shooting weddings, at least I am not pursuing them. Weddings still find me on rare occasion and I am happy to raise my camera to support someone's special day, but now, for the most part, I am shooting more for myself, more for art.

At the beginning of the month I attended a weekend-long photography retreat on the Oregon Coast.

I had brought props with me that I picked up at the local Halloween shop in hopes to create some wonderful images.

With the help of my friend Matt's flash and remote triggers I was able to do just that.

The props were two blank cupie doll masks, one black and one white. They represent a face of horror that still scares the living crap out of me to this day and I don't know why. The why isn't as important as the fact that they scare me I guess.
Equipped with the masks, my camera and Matt's flash gear I headed into the woods alone and started shooting.

The focus was to create mood with the light and a scary sense of wonder. After shooting a little bit with the masks hanging on a tree, my wife wandered over to me and asked if she could help.

She put on a mask and posed in an old tree fort.The image on right is exactly what I had hoped to get from the masks. My wife can be a scary muse for me at times, even though she has not a horrific bone in her body... outside of our shared love of horror films.

Thank you for the help sweetie. You made my goals come true, once again.



Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween: Creating A Monster

Zombie Photographer
Question: What's the difference between a Photoshop makeup job and a real makeup job for Halloween? Answer A: About five hours and forty minutes. Answer B: You can't wear Photoshop to a Halloween Party.

The above image took roughly 20 minutes to put together.

The actual costume I wore to Saturday night's Halloween party took considerably more time. The steps were as follows:


Mastering Blood Spatter
Step 1: Start with clothes: Getting the right amount of blood in accurate splatter patterns is important to a truly scary costume. Using a combination of two different spray bottles, misting and streaming sprays, and a paint brush gives a nice variety of blood spatter patterns.

This is where being a fan of shows like CSI and Dexter come in handy. They are educational in art of creating accurate blood spatter.

Also included in this process was rubbing dirt and grass stains into the clothes as well as ripping and shredding the clothes to age them appropriately.

Total time 1 hour.



Drying the Blood
Step 2: Let the clothes dry.

This is a big deal that can take a day or more.






Mange Look

Step 3:  Hair.

This takes some willingness to sacrifice your ego, as the image on the right dictates.

And while you won't be making a fashion statement, you will make an impact to the effectiveness of the entire costume.

This included messing with the chin-pubes as well.

Of course, after the cutting of the hair you need to a shower.

Total Time: 1 Hour






Merely a flesh wound
Step 4: The facial makeup.

My thanks go to my lovely, understanding and uber-creative wife who created this process of wound generation from tissue paper, liquid latex and makeup.

This whole wound took about a half an hour to make. There was an additional ten minutes in makeup following to blend the wound into my real skin.

The initial preview of this image generated some visceral reactions from my friends on Facebook.

Exactly the reaction I was looking for.




Head Wound

The head wound was a risky choice, but one that paid off big time.

The risk was this: Liquid Latex is like gum, especially when it gets in your hair. But, look at the wound... it is simply amazing!

My wife rocked this makeup application.

This wound took about an another half an hour plus ten minutes for the makeup.

Gruesome as it looks, the application was painless.

I wish the same could be said about its removal.

After this, there was a thirty minute break because I was getting monkey-butt from sitting in the chair for so long.


Looks like it hurts
The final, most complicated wound was the head to neck gash on the left side of my face.

A similar process was used, but was one continuous stream of latex and tissue paper.

This took nearly 40 minutes to apply, plus the makeup time.

Then came the rest of the makeup.

Blood around the mouth; blood in the bald spots on my head; shadowing and general blending took another 20 minutes.

Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes




The Bite
Of course after all that work, some photos were needed.

Bitten
The Attack
Incoming
Total time of application was four and half hours, plus a half an hour for Kim's bite.

Then we headed off to the party.

Total time of removal of the makeup and the latex, which definitely got in my hair, painfully in my hair, was a half an hour plus a shower for a total time of a one hour. Also, I had to finish shaving my head on Sunday for another hour, if the shower is included.

Total time: Six hours of makeup application and cleanup after the party.

Was it worth it? Completely! Because again, you can't wear Photoshop to a Halloween party.

By the way, in case you didn't guess it, I went to the party as a corporate zombie.

Happy Halloween from Creative Monkey Studios!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Un-born

Warning and Disclaimer:
If you are offended by mature and grotesque content you are hereby advised to not read this short story and this story contains graphic language, descriptions and adult situations and have been known to offend adults and make my ex-wife (wife at the time I wrote it) wonder if she even knew who she was married to.

You have been warned!

This story was my first complete short story I wrote several years ago when I made a half-assed attempt to become a publshed writer, which never happened.

Unborn

Mel sits in his car outside the Dime-a-Load laundry mat reading the newspaper.

The headline reads in bold caps “COPYCAT SERIAL RAPIST STRIKES IN BOSTON". Mel lays the paper down, grabs the binoculars from the dash and steals a peek at her inside doing laundry.

It has rained earlier in the evening and the roads were still rain soaked. An eerie glow radiated off the water-soaked road from the cheap green-tinted window filtered fluorescent lights inside the laundry mat.

The redhead folds her red silky blouse neat and tidy and places it in the yellow laundry basket. She turns to grab a yellow tank top and knocks a box of dryer sheets to the ground. She bends over to pick up box.
Mel winces and clutches his groin. The hunger aches as it yearns for satisfaction; yearns to be fed. Mel fidgets with himself, as he always did when the hunger called.

He peers through the binoculars again. She closes the dryer door.

Mel pulls a bandage out of his breast pocket. He peels the wrapper off and looks in the rearview mirror as he put it on. He opens the car door; no interior light came on. He climbs out of the old Ford LTD pulling the keys from the ignition in a fluid motion. As he stands up, he groans as his knees pop and crack while he stands up.
Mel walks to the back of the car. He slips his key in the trunk and unlocks it. He doesn't open the trunk, not yet, as he doesn't want to draw attention to himself. Not yet. He turns his head slightly, while acting like he is fussing with the lock, to watch her without making it obvious. He doesn't want to scare her. Not yet.

She walks out of the front door and looks across the street, as if right at him. Mel looks down at the lock, but continues to watch her from the corner of his eye as he busied himself with the key in the trunk.

She walks towards him. Mel squirms inside as she approaches. The Hunger calls to him. It takes all of his will and strength to not fidget with himself. Mel turns his eyes back on her.
She stops at the curb in front of the laundry mat. Mel stifles a squeal of excitement. She looks left, then right, and then left again. She walks across the street.

She’s walking towards my car!

She veers towards the parked car behind Mel. He straightens up and glanced at her.

She sets her basket on the hood of a beat-up Pinto and she dig in her pocket.

She pulls her hand out of her pocket with keys dangling like chimes in the wind as she walks toward the drivers door.
Her lack of preparation is working to my advantage. Mel closes his eyes briefly as the scent of her body reaches is nose. He can smell the faint odor of perspiration under her breasts. He can taste the sweet nectar of her nicely trimmed pussy. The hunger longs to be fed and screams at him.

Her basket of clothes slides down the rain-slicked hood of her Pinto. “Damn it!” she said darting to catch it. The basket reaches the end of the hood before she can get to it and tumbles to the ground.
Not what I expected, but couldn’t have went better.

Her clean clothes spill around Mel's feet. He turns and allows the trunk to open and looks down. A pair of white, high-cut panties with red lacey trim lay across the laces of his galoshes. The hunger surged at the sight and his whole being feels like it might explode right there. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, and opens his eyes while he releases the now stale air from lungs through his nose.
Mel regains his composure enough to see the redhead scrambling to save her clothes from the ground. She kneels down next to him, muttering. He could not hear her mumbling over the sound of his own heart hammering in his chest.

He reaches for his back pocket and grabs a small aluminum bat. Mel pauses for a moment. Something is wrong with this situation. For the first time since the hunger came to him, something didn't feet right... Almost like it was, Too Right.

The Hunger sends an aching ripple through his entire body, urging him to forget the fear and focus on Its need. He refocuses, pulls the bat from his back pocket, raises the bat over his head and brings it down across the base of her skull with a swift, smooth swing.

Her body collapses limp to the cold, wet ground, face first with a dull thud. No time to waste.
Mel lifts the trunk open and picks the redhead off the ground. 115, 128 max. Nice and lean. He lays her gently on the cool plastic lining the trunk floor. Mel made it a point to pick smaller framed women after he failed to load a woman who was well over 300 pounds. Lesson learned.

He closes the trunk, pulls the keys out of the truck keyhole and walks around the car to the driver door. He opens the door climbs in the driver’s seat, and starts the car. I didn’t check to see if she was dead, he thought. "It’s not important. Just get her home and check there."

The veins in his neck pulse to the beat of his heart as he started the car. I don’t need panic driving right now. "Calm down! Calm down. Calm… Down… Mel took a few moments using a breathing technique he learned to calm himself. He had driven in a panicked state before and got a ticket with a woman in the trunk the whole time. Lesson learned.

Once Mel regained his composure, he checks the review mirror. A car is approaching in the distance. He shifts the car into drive and idles away from the curb with his lights off. He makes the first available right turn without his brakes and half way through the block he switched his lights on and steps on the gas pedal.
Mel turns the portable police scanner on. Silence… The scanner changes frequencies. Silence… It changed again. Silence… Again… Silence… He starts his route back home. Mel knows where the numbers of police officers are highest at this time of night, and he makes his way home avoiding all of those locations.

*****************

Mel pushes the button on the garage door opener as he pulls into driveway. Once the door opens fully he pulls into the double garage and shuts off the engine. He presses the garage door opener button again and the door lowers closed.
Mel gets out of the car and walks over to the workbench. He grabs some precut butcher paper and a roll duck tape. He turns and walks to the front of his car. He bends down and taped the paper over his front license plate. He does the same thing for the back plate. Lesson learned.
I wonder if she is dead, he thinks, as he notices no sound coming from the trunk.

That’s too bad. He hastens his preparation process so she won't get too cold. He made that mistake once, and although unpleasant, he was able to satisfy the hunger, but he did not enjoy it. Lesson learned.

He surveys the garage. He checks the sound-deadening foam. Good.

He checks the table in the middle of the second half of the garage. Tie straps in place. Good.

He checks the deadbolts on all the doors leading out the garage. Locked. Good.

Everything is in order.
Mel walks to the table and undresses himself down to his underwear. The cold concrete floor robs the heat from his feet. He bends over, pulls his keys from the pocket of his crumpled pants and walks over to the trunk. He pulls his underwear down, steps out of them and throws them towards the door to the house.
He inserts the key into the trunk. Darkness swallows him as the lights went out. The only sound he can hear is the beating of his own heart. He even hears his heart skipped a beat and the doubt returns to his head.
Mel snaps his hand away from the key and stands in the dark for a minute. The cool musty garage air caresses his skin and a shiver snakes up his spine and his flesh crawls with goose bumps and the hair on arms stands up.

He thinks about the situation for a minute. What is wrong here? The garage door light just shut off. "How could I forget to turn the lights on?" He stops thinking and listens. Save his still racing heart there is nothing but silence.
The Hunger urges Mel to feed it again. He feels his way to the door into the house.

He fumbles for the light switch and flips it up. The dark blue fluorescents come to life overhead with a clicking noise as they cast a cold pale light into the garage.
Mel stands there, naked, holding the light switch between his shaking index finger and thumb. "I have never forgotten the lights", he says aloud. He looks over the room again. A voice in his head calls out, "This doesn’t feel right."

The Hunger calls to him again expressing its urgency. The voice in his head is silenced and he obeys the Hunger.
Mel returns to the back of the car and places his left hand on the trunk before turning the key with his right hand. "I don’t need this one kicking the trunk open on me", he says.

Lesson learned.
Mel turns the key and the lock clicks open. He waits, holding the trunk closed, nothing from within. He opens the trunk and looks in. He watches her for a moment and notices that she isn’t breathing. "That’s too bad," he says as a bend down and wraps his arms around her.
Mel lifts her limp body out of the trunk and carries her to the table. Her red hair swings limp, as does her arms and legs. He places her gently on the table and he undresses her.

Mel uses great care when undressing the women, or as much care, as they would allow if they were alive. The red head allowed Mel to use all the care he wanted. One of the benefits of them being dead. He looks at the tie straps at each corner of the table, then looks back at her nude body. "I won’t need those tonight," he says with a grin.

Mel looks at her long and hard.

The Hunger demands satisfaction.

He places his right hand on her stomach and the fingers of his left hand run through her red moist hair. The skin under his right hand is soft and silky smooth. She is cool to the touch, but not cold. He moves his hand up her body and grasps her left breast firmly.

“Small, but firm,” he says. The Hunger drilled him with pain in his groin.
“I know!” he shouts. “I need to get into the goddamn mood. I’m not a fucking machine.”

The hunger eases a little, but remains persistent.

Mel's hand moves down her body, caressing her white skin. He runs his fingers through her red, thick delicately trimmed pubic hair and tugs at it lightly. He lowers his head to her stomach and inhales deeply. The faint smell of sweet vanilla lavishes his senses. His dick pulses to life as he clutches her crotch hard with his whole hand. "You’re still warm where it’s important," he says.
Mel slowly climbs onto the table. He lays on his side next to her to face her to look at her beautiful face. He stares in awe at her. “Never before have I had such a beautiful woman,” he said. “Thank you for sharing yourself with me. Thank you.”
He rolls on top of her, using his knees to spread her legs. The head of his penis brushes lightly against her pubic hair. He feel the urge to cum right then. “Oh, no, no, no. Not yet. It won’t be satisfied that way. No cheating the hunger my dear.”

He hovers over her and thinks of non-stimulating images. Dead kittens

CockroachesNaked men… The urgency passes.
Mel settles into position, plunged into her and moans at the warm moistness of her.

He withdraws and plunges again. Again. With each thrust, the Hunger subsides just a little and is replaced by pre-orgasm sensations. He thrusts faster, harder and deeper as he approaches his peak.

Mel’s orgasm finally surges through his body; he thrusts deep in her to release his seed. Something tugs on his cock hard from within her. Her body shudders. “What the fuck?” he screams.

Mel moves to get off her, but she wraps her legs around his waist and holds him in place. The second wave of his orgasm hits. Her body convulses again and she arched her back. He cried out in pain as something, she, jerked on his invading probe.
The redhead’s eyes snap open and she grins. He fights to escape her clutches, but the third wave of orgasm hits him. Her body seizes and a painful ripping sensation from deep within her pulls him closer. He fights against his orgasm and against her, but could not focus on either over the now searing pain.
The redhead throws her arms around him and pulls him closer to her. She lifts her head slightly and in his ear whispers, “This is the beginning of the end.”

A vicious pull on him, her arms let go, and his back arcs and he screams and almost inhuman sound of agony. Another pull, even stronger this time, his pelvic area collapses in a melody of snapping bones and liquid flesh.

Mel’s lower back snaps as his body folded in two, the bottoms of his feet touching the back of his head, and he is drawn even further into her womb. The redhead moans unnaturally, as she throws her head back and arcs her back. Her pelvic area spreads making more room for his mass.

Mel can’t breath. He can’t scream. No! NO!

Mel feels his body being pulled in, inch by inch. He cannot not feel his heart beat any more. His shoulder pops as his arm flails, continuing to try to find a way to escape her. His collarbone snaps under the immense pressure. His neck feels the warmth of her labia. For a brief moment he can tasted her moistness mixed with his own. Then he tastes nothing. He smells the faded sweet vanilla. He smells nothing. He saw the red fluff of pubic hair he admired earlier. He saw nothing.
Mel was unborn.

*****************

She remains on the table until he was fully absorbed. She does not enjoy her role, but she found solace in knowing she was purifying the world of the scum of the Earth.

When she finished healing and she rolled off of the table. She took a moment and looked around the room. A garage. Car, workbench, clothes…She grabs the clothes crumpled on the floor and puts them on. They were a man’s clothes, but it wasn’t the first time she put a man’s clothes on and won’t be the last.

She walks over to the car and closes the trunk. She notices the keys sticking in the lock and takes them out. She looked down and sees the butcher paper on the license plate and pulls it off. She walks around the front of the car and does the same thing for the front plate.

She walked to the driver’s side of the car and slid behind the wheel. She starts the old brown car and presses the garage-door opener. The door opens slowly. She backs the car out of the garage and presses the garage-door opener again. The door closes.

She looks down in the passenger seat and read the headline of the newspaper. She backs out of the driveway, puts the car into drive and makes her way to the freeway. Boston 485 miles the sign read.

“Boston it is.”