A Mother Lode Of Halloween Pics
Okay, I found the fancy cameras memory card and now I can finally post a
ridiculous amount of Halloween Pics.
Finally, the official Halloween Post.
Halloween 2013 At The Neumanskys Haunted Pumpkin Patch
This year we had nice mild weather and record breaking crowds.
At one point on Halloween night the throng of people was so dense
that the police shut our road down to auto traffic! As far as anyone
can remember that's never happened before.
Woo! Haunted Pumpkin Patch is really pulling em in.
This years theme was, 'Skeletons Invade The Pumpkin Patch'
We where really bummed initially about the scaffolding covering
the house. We couldn't do any décor in the windows because they
were completely obscured. So, our resident ghost Victoria didn't
visit us this Halloweentime.
Overall Shots
Hopefully here you can get a feel for the overall set up.
We had a path through the patch again this year. With lots and lots
of skeletons. Several new props were also added.
The skeletons climbing the scaffolding was probably the most popular decoration.
Props
The singing pumpkins where back this year but in a different place.
The groundbreaker pumpkin zombie was out again. Still with a head that I
can't seem to keep on...
Here's a really bad shot of the interactive video we had projected on the driveway.
Zombies would randomly amble around and if the kids stepped on one it would
squish. Lots more fun than it looks from this picture.
When you are taking a look at all these photos pay attention to how many people have
a recording device pressed up to their faces. When did it change? Now everyone wants
to record an amazing experience instead of actually fully experiencing it?
Official Vona-made bone chandelier at night.
Arty shot of singing pumpkins.
Smack Talking Skulls
I took an old store bought prop and fancied it up.
These were originally battery powered and not so loud. I converted them
to run on a wall wart and removed their crappy little speakers and used a
sonic transducer attached to the foam tombstones. With this mod they were
loud! Perhaps a bit too loud...ahem...live an learn.
The skulls on the two tombstones on either side of my driveway are interactive.
When one walks by they say disparaging things...
In this shot ones about to get a slap for being fresh.
Grim Reaper
This year we changed it up and had the 4bar lifter out in the maze attached to
this hastily made grim reaper. This thing scared the bejesus out of just about
everybody. When he was at full height he was about 7' tall.
Here's a shot of the grim reaper fully up.
Skeletons!
The kids were calling this a mommy skeleton and her two babies.
How cute!
Fetch Fido!
Yes, more shots of the skeletons climbing.
Spooky Fountain
Another new prop this year. I was attempting to make the worlds biggest
time stopping fountain. I built an ultra short wavelength UV strobe light with
an adjustable strobe. We poured RIT whitener into the fountain so the water would
fluoresce. The RIT just wasn't UV reactive enough so we broke apart a bunch of
yellow highlighters and dumped them in the fountain. The water glowed much better
after that. The fountain was a qualified success. It wasn't dark enough to see the glowing
water well enough and the strobe couldn't flash fast enough to stop time or reverse it...
It did do a great job of breaking the stream into discreet particles though and that amazed
everyone who walked by.
Spooky night shot.
In this shot you can see the 40W UV strobe
Ha, one problem we didn't anticipate was that the RIT would foam up.
There was so much foam that it obscured the base of the fountain.
We started calling it, 'The bubble bath of doom.'
Here's what the base looked like that no one could see. Skulls, creepy blood
vessels...
Boogie Bones
Since this years theme was 'Skeletons Invade' we decided that the interactive puppet
should be a skull. With the scaffolding up we had to re-engineer how we do this effect.
Luckily, I picked up this crazy bright, crazy short throw projector off of Craigs list.
Before the scare
After the scare.
We used the trash can trauma as the scare in front of the digital puppet this year.
We were calling him 'Oscar the Grouch-y Zombie'.
In this pic the projector is on the landing which is only like 6' away from the
screen and that's like an 8' image!
Here's a shot of our very last visitor on Halloween night. She's a good friend of
ours and possibly the most spooky person we know.
Its funny how we have long time friends who just still have no clue about what we
do for Halloween...
Coffin
Yes, we had a kid in the coffin pretending to be dead along with his auntie.
He had a total ball scaring people. Though, many people where not okay
with the 'kid in a coffin' bit....ahem
The coffin was placed in front of the singing pumpkins. So, after you get
your candy and you think you are all safe you stop to listen to the pumpkins
annnnnd, the person in the coffin sits up, or screams or tries to 'grab' you.
Many, many people (mostly adults) got the crap scared out of them here.
When the coffin wasn't being used it served as our photo-op spot.
Coffin Selfies
Our friends are such goobers.
Random people in the coffin.
And yes, Mr. and Mrs. Madscientist had to get in on the act also.
The coffin was actually very comfy. There was a feather bed on the bottom
covered by a tapestry.
Crowd Shots
Did I mention that it was crazy crowded?
Here's a random sampling of crowd shots.
See this picture here where you see our canned food collection box on the steps.
That box was filled to overflowing on the 29th. By the morning of the 30th it was
completely empty....Some douchbag stole everything over night. Hope they really
needed the food as it was earmarked for folks who definitely do.
Luckily, peoples generosity filled it up again the next night.
Grandma giving out candy.
Random Arty Shots
Look! A real pumpkin that we grew ourselves and real pumpkin vine!
The wood benches got a lot of use. I'm thinking that we probably need two more.
Dia De Los Meurtos
As is our custom on Nov 1st we have dinner in the graveyard.
Since Nov 1st fell on a Friday we had Mexican food with margaritas.
Family Madscientist enjoying a repast in the cemetery.
Bye Bye Till Next Year
We hope you had a great Halloween 2013 and hope to see y'all next year.
An Ode To Those That Have Passed
We all miss you both dearly.
I just had a depressing thought...if we keep up this tradition as we get older more
and more of the tombstones will be memorials....
ridiculous amount of Halloween Pics.
Finally, the official Halloween Post.
Halloween 2013 At The Neumanskys Haunted Pumpkin Patch
This year we had nice mild weather and record breaking crowds.
At one point on Halloween night the throng of people was so dense
that the police shut our road down to auto traffic! As far as anyone
can remember that's never happened before.
Woo! Haunted Pumpkin Patch is really pulling em in.
This years theme was, 'Skeletons Invade The Pumpkin Patch'
We where really bummed initially about the scaffolding covering
the house. We couldn't do any décor in the windows because they
were completely obscured. So, our resident ghost Victoria didn't
visit us this Halloweentime.
Overall Shots
Hopefully here you can get a feel for the overall set up.
We had a path through the patch again this year. With lots and lots
of skeletons. Several new props were also added.
Props
The singing pumpkins where back this year but in a different place.
The groundbreaker pumpkin zombie was out again. Still with a head that I
can't seem to keep on...
Here's a really bad shot of the interactive video we had projected on the driveway.
squish. Lots more fun than it looks from this picture.
When you are taking a look at all these photos pay attention to how many people have
a recording device pressed up to their faces. When did it change? Now everyone wants
to record an amazing experience instead of actually fully experiencing it?
Official Vona-made bone chandelier at night.
Arty shot of singing pumpkins.
Smack Talking Skulls
I took an old store bought prop and fancied it up.
These were originally battery powered and not so loud. I converted them
to run on a wall wart and removed their crappy little speakers and used a
sonic transducer attached to the foam tombstones. With this mod they were
loud! Perhaps a bit too loud...ahem...live an learn.
The skulls on the two tombstones on either side of my driveway are interactive.
When one walks by they say disparaging things...
In this shot ones about to get a slap for being fresh.
Grim Reaper
This year we changed it up and had the 4bar lifter out in the maze attached to
this hastily made grim reaper. This thing scared the bejesus out of just about
everybody. When he was at full height he was about 7' tall.
Here's a shot of the grim reaper fully up.
Skeletons!
The kids were calling this a mommy skeleton and her two babies.
How cute!
Fetch Fido!
Yes, more shots of the skeletons climbing.
Spooky Fountain
Another new prop this year. I was attempting to make the worlds biggest
time stopping fountain. I built an ultra short wavelength UV strobe light with
an adjustable strobe. We poured RIT whitener into the fountain so the water would
fluoresce. The RIT just wasn't UV reactive enough so we broke apart a bunch of
yellow highlighters and dumped them in the fountain. The water glowed much better
after that. The fountain was a qualified success. It wasn't dark enough to see the glowing
water well enough and the strobe couldn't flash fast enough to stop time or reverse it...
It did do a great job of breaking the stream into discreet particles though and that amazed
everyone who walked by.
Spooky night shot.
In this shot you can see the 40W UV strobe
Ha, one problem we didn't anticipate was that the RIT would foam up.
There was so much foam that it obscured the base of the fountain.
We started calling it, 'The bubble bath of doom.'
Here's what the base looked like that no one could see. Skulls, creepy blood
vessels...
Boogie Bones
Since this years theme was 'Skeletons Invade' we decided that the interactive puppet
should be a skull. With the scaffolding up we had to re-engineer how we do this effect.
Luckily, I picked up this crazy bright, crazy short throw projector off of Craigs list.
Before the scare
After the scare.
We were calling him 'Oscar the Grouch-y Zombie'.
In this pic the projector is on the landing which is only like 6' away from the
screen and that's like an 8' image!
Here's a shot of our very last visitor on Halloween night. She's a good friend of
ours and possibly the most spooky person we know.
Its funny how we have long time friends who just still have no clue about what we
do for Halloween...
Coffin
Yes, we had a kid in the coffin pretending to be dead along with his auntie.
He had a total ball scaring people. Though, many people where not okay
with the 'kid in a coffin' bit....ahem
The coffin was placed in front of the singing pumpkins. So, after you get
your candy and you think you are all safe you stop to listen to the pumpkins
annnnnd, the person in the coffin sits up, or screams or tries to 'grab' you.
Many, many people (mostly adults) got the crap scared out of them here.
When the coffin wasn't being used it served as our photo-op spot.
Coffin Selfies
Our friends are such goobers.
Random people in the coffin.
And yes, Mr. and Mrs. Madscientist had to get in on the act also.
covered by a tapestry.
Crowd Shots
Did I mention that it was crazy crowded?
Here's a random sampling of crowd shots.
See this picture here where you see our canned food collection box on the steps.
That box was filled to overflowing on the 29th. By the morning of the 30th it was
completely empty....Some douchbag stole everything over night. Hope they really
needed the food as it was earmarked for folks who definitely do.
Luckily, peoples generosity filled it up again the next night.
Grandma giving out candy.
Random Arty Shots
Look! A real pumpkin that we grew ourselves and real pumpkin vine!
The wood benches got a lot of use. I'm thinking that we probably need two more.
Dia De Los Meurtos
As is our custom on Nov 1st we have dinner in the graveyard.
Since Nov 1st fell on a Friday we had Mexican food with margaritas.
Bye Bye Till Next Year
An Ode To Those That Have Passed
I just had a depressing thought...if we keep up this tradition as we get older more
and more of the tombstones will be memorials....
