The Great Pumpkin Show

Char and I went to The Great Pumpkin Show in Salem, New Hampshire. It was really fun, and there were a ton of pumpkins. There were two basic types: traditional eyes-nose-mouth pumpkins of various configurations, many of which could have been carved by anybody; and Artist Pumpkins. The technique here involved getting not carving through the pumpkin, but scratching away at the surface. In this way various amounts of light could be let through, resulting in a sort of grayscale effect. They would also shade in areas with a sharpie to make them blacker. All of the “image-like” pumpkins were carved in this way.

Many pumpkins were scary

Many were not

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A great example of the grayscale technique.

We visited on November 6th, so by then a lot of the pumpkins were starting to rot. Many were still fresh, but many were collapsing.

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Collapsing Bush and Scary Kerry

The flash makes things look pretty crappy. I tried about 5 different ways of setting my camera up to photograph the pumpkins, but really I needed a tripod I didn’t have.

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This is a huge pumpkin. The one behind it is average-sized.

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This had incredibly even tones

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Extra carving on the lanterns makes them glow

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Char did not like this one

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