Revelation 20:10.
Although most of us concentrate on the fun parts of Halloween, the costumes and candy, for some, it has much darker roots. Samhain is also a Wiccan holiday, and an old Celtic harvest holiday marking the Celtic New Year, the end of summer, and the end of the harvest season. It also signaled the beginning of winter, which they associated with death.
It is the celebration that is the origin of Halloween. and was first observed by Celtic Pagans. On this day, the Celts believed the veil between the living and the dead was especially thin. This allowed spirits of the dead to visit the living. Some believe that medieval Christians dispatched the saints in defense, establishing November 1 as the day in their honor and a way of mending the annual rift into the land of the dead.
One can't discuss the battle with evil without mentioning Satan, the ultimate Demon. Satan, or Lucifer, was cast from Heaven and sent to the depths of Hell. Lucifer became so consumed with pride over his God-given splendor that he became corrupt and violent, no longer willing to serve under God. His sense of superiority led Lucifer to use his free will to scheme to be greater than God, and to assemble an army of angels to help him carry out that plot.
Many of you know the work of Dave from Immortal Form from his previous appearances on FH, including his Canada Day shoot from earlier this year. (HERE:) Dave always shoots a Halloween theme, and last year captured model Jason as a dark figure with a jack-o-lantern head. (HERE:) The shot in an underground parking garage with added to the mood that Dave wanted to set.
This year, when Dave brought up a possible Halloween theme, when discussing ideas for an upcoming shoot with the devilishly tempting Alejandro. Alejandro responded that he'd always wanted to do a Halloween shoot, and mentioned to Dave that he owned a rather sinister looking pair of Demon horns. This generated the seeds for the idea, the battle between good and evil, that they ended up creating.
'The shoot itself was great. It did go long, over 4 hours. In addition to the Halloween shoot, I also wanted to get some figure shots, which we did at the end. Alejandro was a trooper through the whole thing while I ran around moving lights, climbing step ladders or crawling up to get a different angle. I was exhausted after it ended and needed an hour before I could build enough strength to make dinner. '
It wouldn't really be Halloween without at least one sexy, little Devil. Alejandro is sexy for sure, but his long horns also add an element of danger. Dave also helped create an especially sinister mood and feel with his use of lighting, and the red hues that glow eerily in the background, and cascade over and across Alejandro's naked skin.
One of the most interesting images, and one of the most erotic, is the final shot in this series. The digital created piece was inspired by images that Dave found on the web. Given the theme, and the Demon's banishment to hell, the image evokes Lucifer's last stand, before being pulled by the hands from Heaven, into his everlasting underworld inferno.
'The hands were mine. It's multiple shots combined. I set the camera up on a tripod, crouched down behind Alejandro, out my hands on him and then used a remote to trigger the camera. Problem was I couldn't use my hands so I had to put the remote in my mouth, and I still couldn't trip the button that way, so I put a cap on top of the button to make depressing it easier and wrapped that in electrical tape to hold it in place. The cap would slide out from under the tape so I put a second piece across it the other way to keep it in place. Didn't quite work; the button was still difficult to depress and took multiple "bites" to set off.
I needed a direct line of sight to the camera to trigger it which required a lot of "yoga" to crouch, get my hands in place, then point at the camera. The cap still had a habit of sliding out anyway while I was madly biting and trying to trigger the camera. Three times it almost went down my throat into my wind pipe! We kept going until I figured we had enough shots though. We had a lot of un-usable shots because of other technical issues but fortunately there are enough to make the piece work.'
Revelation 12:9
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