Ironic Sans: Halloween on the Upper West Side

November 1, 2007

Halloween on the Upper West Side

Every Halloween, West 69th Street closes to traffic, and thousands of kids go trick or treating from building to building. This year, I set up my camera in one building’s lobby and photographed some of the kids in their costumes. I thought I’d share a few of the shots (I particularly liked the little girl named Dalia who was dressed as the “Dalia Lama”):

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Comments

Nice work, Avedon!

Posted by: Steve Lawson | November 1, 2007 3:57 PM

:) Great idea! Could you upload more photos?

Posted by: Vita | November 1, 2007 4:41 PM

These are awesome. Love the texture-y feel of the photos as well. This is my delurking opportunity, so hi! Love your blog, always. Becky

Posted by: Becky | November 1, 2007 4:41 PM

I like the policekid the best (:

Posted by: sp | November 1, 2007 6:13 PM

I can just imagine that police kid saying “mister, can i just get my candy now?”

Posted by: nickf | November 1, 2007 7:24 PM

If you lose the badge off the police kid, he looks how I think the Maytag repair guy would have looked as a kid: http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/images/maytag.jpg

Posted by: Mr. Wisdumb | November 1, 2007 9:18 PM

What sort of lighting set-up did you use?

Posted by: Chris | November 2, 2007 1:34 AM

These are awesome pictures.

I was thinking that I’d love to take pictures of some of the kiddies who came to my door, some of them were adorable, a few actually scary. But I figured their parents would be a little creeped out if I asked to take pics of them (especially if I was gonna post them online).

Posted by: Kathaclysm | November 2, 2007 10:16 AM

Damn, those pictures are intense. I thought Superman was an illustration.

Posted by: Kim | November 2, 2007 3:52 PM

Nice pictures! How did you get the kids to look so serious? It was Halloween! Did you give them crappy candy?

Posted by: Nick | November 2, 2007 4:32 PM

These photos are really gorgeous. May I ask what sort of processing you did on them to achieve that very bold, illustrative effect?

Dalia Lama cracks me up. PERFECT. I want to find her parents and high five them — I’m sure they are really worthy people to know.

Posted by: feather | November 3, 2007 4:57 PM

Lookin pretty good. You might want to think about running your sharpening on a separate layer so you can mask out all those halo’d edges. I usually just use a big feathered brush and quicky trace the silo, that way you can mask out any other areas which might also be odd.

Posted by: earth | November 5, 2007 12:36 PM

Okay, is it just me or is that superman kid wearing just a little too much make-up?

Posted by: Mike | November 5, 2007 12:40 PM

We have done the same here for years but compared ours are junk

Posted by: Mike Davis | November 5, 2007 1:22 PM

who wouldn’t want an outfit with both jumbo sized sequins and movable dragon wings? very impressive!

Posted by: monkey | November 5, 2007 1:34 PM

I too would love to know how you acocmplished the image technique. I’ve been trying to get the same effect for a couple of years now. Ap hoto friend of mine ha smastered it, but wont share the secret.

Posted by: Hrustar | November 5, 2007 1:54 PM

simply fantastic shots!

Posted by: Hypeful | November 5, 2007 2:35 PM

a few more here …

Posted by: Anonymous | November 5, 2007 2:37 PM

Well done! How’d you get the parents to sign a release for the kids’ photos to you and the Intarweb?

Posted by: RB | November 5, 2007 2:49 PM

Great Photos!

This work reminds me a lot of the photos taken by Jill Greenberg.

http://www.manipulator.com/

Posted by: Erik | November 5, 2007 3:00 PM

Great pictures. Bit too much unsharp mark

Posted by: Wesley Tanaka | November 5, 2007 8:14 PM

Those are AWESOME!!! Post more!
The Dalia Lama looks so peaceful! ;-)

Posted by: bonnie | November 5, 2007 9:07 PM

These photos are adorable. I also took a look at your portfolio. I love the monkey on the stove.

Posted by: leonora | November 5, 2007 9:54 PM

Mark,

I wouldn’t take the unsharp comments to heart. I actually like the look you accomplished with this technique and afterall it’s a stylized look. Some people can’t handle the sharp look - they must be using Nikon’s… (joking) Afterall Canon’s produce a sharper image.

Keep up the great work and produce images that make you happy. Remember - this stuff is subjective.

Posted by: Erik | November 6, 2007 12:24 AM

Very nice. The shots are almost perverse, with a jill greenberg feel to them.

Posted by: john Brooks | November 6, 2007 12:30 AM

I love the pictures, I too thought that the superman kid was an illustration, I love that effect

Posted by: peter | November 6, 2007 1:47 AM

these photographs are really beautiful, almost surreal… great job

Posted by: Open English | November 6, 2007 9:22 AM

I want to be a photographer like you when I grow up! Bravo. Kids are so hard to shoot.

Posted by: Annette Evans | November 6, 2007 5:23 PM

Great shots here. Really love the way your eye works. You captured these shots in a wonderful way.

Posted by: Nate | November 18, 2007 10:52 PM

buttugly kids, all

Posted by: Anonymous | December 8, 2007 5:04 PM

Who is dali lama?
which one?

Posted by: Georgia | December 16, 2007 10:21 PM

This site is © David Friedman and except for fair use it may not be reproduced without my permission. Luckily, permission is usually easy to obtain. Contact me and we'll talk. This blog is typeset in Georgia, Times New Roman, or Times, in that order of priority based on what fonts are installed on your computer, or whatever standard serif font is installed if none of the above. The exceptions are the main title, which is based roughly on Baskerville Old Face, and the handwritten parts which are, well, my handwriting.