The Dancing Dead

 

“It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark....”

So sings Michael Jackson in his 1982 classic Thriller.

Well, I don’t know about being evil, but the Dead that are dancing in downtown Riverside certainly are lurking.  Their dancing and the tales told about the Dead are just the kind fun that makes the Annual Ghost Walk such ghoulish fun. 

Zombinas: Alexandra Estrada, left, and Kristin Lindsay, right

This Halloween, the California Riverside Ballet’s annual fundraiser celebrated its 20th year.  Its a time when Zombies stroll, troll, and shimmy in the hallows of old Riverside.  It's a time when fans can soak up a chilling ghost story of a local urban legend.  It's a time when folks downtown can wonder whether they did OR didn’t just see something floating over your shoulder.  It was just what we needed for a cover story for Riverside Magazine.  And for a fan of terror like myself, this shoot was right up my alley.

Zombie/Dancer Ayden Lyron

An early cover idea at the Old Coroner's office

I’ve always loved the Zombie genre.  From George A. Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead, to Playstation’s Resident Evil to AMC’s The Walking Dead, I can’t seem to get enough of Zombies. Our approach was two-fold.  First, we started with the cover.  Back in September, we met a group of Dancing Ghouls at the CRB offices in downtown Riverside.  I began with a a few shots using on-location lighting.  With Zombies, like photography, going minimal goes a long way:   a little make-up, some torn-up clothes and a two-light setup with a gel.

In the field, we made our way to the old Coroner’s building on Orange.  Again, we used ambient lighting combined with a wide-angle from below to give that “they’re coming to get you” feel.  As the sun went down, I moved to an Pocket Wizard remote setup using my SB-800’s.  What really gave us that cover quality shot was when I put a green gel on the background strobe to light up the ivy.  (See below) That was what we needed to put us over the top and move us from Scooby-Doo to Creepshow. And talk about creepy, that place may not have had ghosts, but it had plenty of pigeons, spiders, and bats to keep us in the mood.

Ashleigh Williams: Dead or Alive??

And speaking of mood, being in a spooky mood gets everybody halfway there to having fun.  It also helps to put me in a great position to pay some solid homage to some of  my favorite horror flick favorites.  The gentle but brooding play of light and shadow.  A slight tilt of the head.  That look of emptiness that is displayed in every good Zombie.  

The Ghost Bride of the Mission Inn

One of my favorite shots was taken on the north side of the Mission Inn.  It featured Bronwin Prentice of King High School in the role of the Ghost Bride of The Mission Inn.  The shot, taken with my 80-200mm, was made possible with the high ISO capability of my D700.  I was one of the rare times I have ever shot at ISO 5000- not THAT’S Sacre.  The grain I felt actually added to the content of the image.

The Zombie Dancers start out innocently enough---

and then they break into the funk of forty thousand years!

Its always fun to shoot the stuff that you are into.
And in this case, I survived the pressure of
delivering a cover shot on deadline, got file shots for next year, got to mingle
with the ghouls, and lived to see another day!

‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night! 

Eerily close to the final cover shot

A little green goes a long way!