How and Why
I passed this great roadside display of pumpkins a couple of times in the run up to Halloween, each time the light was poor offering little potential for photography, I waited until the weekend when the light was good and then returned and scoped out a range of view points with varying focal lengths. With a stationary subject like this I took the opportunity to really explore the subject fully and in consistent light I had time to crawl all around this display exploiting varying angles, this view worked best and the dark background provided by the grass and hedge really helps to throw the main subject forward, in the morning light the pumpkins almost glow by themselves.
While this image looks equally attractive in colour, by converting to black and white the colour difference between the pumpkins no longer complicates the image and the luminosity of the waxy pumpkin skins really shows through.
I had to carefully balance aperture and shutter speed to maintain sufficient depth of field to hold all the pumpkins in sharp focus while not stopping down so much as to reduce shutter speed to risk blur while hand-holding the camera.
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