Happy Halloween!

Hello, readers. Having a spooktacular day, I trust? If you're going out in costume, what did you decide to be this year?

Yours Truly did Halloween right...I spent it in a cemetery. I'm working on a project that required me to do a photoshoot at an actual open grave. It was a day shoot, which made the experience a little less creepy...still, looking down into an empty grave makes my skin crawl. I've seen to many zombie movies, I guess. So there I was at a cemetery in Burbank, driving around with a camera, eyes peeled for a pile of freshly turned earth. Despite the incredible size of this particular body dump, there were no open graves to be found. I finally pulled over and asked a couple of gravediggers if they could help me out. Can you imagine what these dudes must have been thinking? I mean, here comes some whitebread chick with a paparazzo-size camera, in the middle of the afternoon, looking very *not* goth, asking where all the fresh graves were at. It was comical. They were understandably confused, but very nice to me. One of them kept pointing me towards funerals in progress. I had to reiterate that there couldn't be an actual casket in the hole. Besides, can you imagine me trying to take pictures around a funeral? "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm sorry for your loss, but you're in my shot." Not my style.

Actual conversation snippet:
Mexican gravedigger: "Ah, so you need to see the big hole?"
My reply: "Well, this could really be misconstrued, but yes, I do."

Finally, one of the guys (thanks, Romero!) took me up a remote hill where one of his cohorts had been digging just a few hours previously. It was fresh, messy and yawning for an occupant. Perfect! I got down and dirty on the ground and got my shot. I'm still trying to get dead people dirt off me. What a glamorous job I have. I suffer – SUFFER, I tell you! for my art.

For your viewing pleasure, a Bollywood version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." It's priceless...I can't get it out of my head. "Gooooolemarrrr!"