Last week I shot some marketing photos for the guys who run Scaresville here in Suffolk. Scaresville is a haunted village set up each October in the grounds of Kentwell Hall.
Scaresville takes place after dark with groups of paying guests walking through a huge number of scary scenarios, most in complete darkness. ‘Scarers’ wait at each location ready to jump out and frighten the unsuspecting guests. Trust me, it's not for the fainthearted!
My job was to capture some photos for the organisers to use in their marketing. I took a few atmospheric photos of the Scaresville Village but mainly I shot photos of the scarers themselves. Not surprisingly they were all pretty up for posing for the camera and we had some great fun.
I waited until all the scarers were in costume and in position, and then went round the route the guests would take. I was only about 10 minutes in front of the night’s first group of guests so I had to move fast. It got pretty tight sometimes, hearing the guests’ screams not far behind me as I scrambled to change the flash batteries or desperately tried to focus the camera. (Focusing was extremely tricky in the pitch dark, especially as many of the scarers were also dressed in dark colours. Using the autofocus assist illuminator in the camera helped with the focus a little.)
Using off-camera flash created a ‘horror’ look to the photos. Setting the flash to remote mode I was able to place it in different positions and adjust its settings from my camera.
Overall, I came away with some fun pictures that I think give a good overview of the event and will hopefully encourage more people to head along to Scaresville.
