It’s that time of the year again, when children knock on strangers’ doors demanding confectionery, and parents are totally ok with that. Perhaps the Buffy the Vampire Slayer explanation is the best one: real vampires don’t turn up because they find the whole affair rather tacky. And what could be more tacky than a film specifically designed for the Halloween season? Enter Kono Boo!, an experimental 35mm colour film that promises to bring a little seasonal spirit to my photography. Whether that spirit is supernatural or simply the result of a marketing department having a particularly good afternoon remains to be seen.

The idea behind Kono Boo! is fairly straightforward. The film is pre-exposed with Halloween-themed graphics, which should appear alongside whatever you photograph, adding a suitably eerie touch to your images. Underneath the novelty, however, we’re dealing with good old Kodak Gold, packaged up in a seasonal disguise and sold at a premium to a population eager to inject a little Halloween hilarity into their otherwise mundane lives. It’s a bright idea, certainly, although perhaps one conceived after a few too many beers at lunch. There’s a sucker born every day, and this time that sucker is me. In fairness, the film was a gift from my daughter, so thanks, Lizzy. Let’s see what we can do with it.

Photographing Halloween in the Australian Spring

There’s one problem with celebrating this Autumnal festival. I’m in Australia, where October means spring. While our northern hemispherical friends are out photographing burnished autumnal foliage, we’re watching hardy wildflowers desperately squeeze through the cracked earth, only to be scorched by the increasingly unforgiving antipodean sun. It’s not exactly the classic Halloween aesthetic, but surely there’s something unsettling lurking in the natural world if I look hard enough. Trees are silent sentries watching the world renew and decay, while flowers are ephemeral seductresses of pollination, giving themselves up to insects before withering into nothingness. If that doesn’t sound vaguely sinister, I don’t know what does.

For this photographic expedition, I’m taking my Nikon N65, a perfectly functional late-model plastic SLR with approximately thirty-year-old electronics slowly rotting inside it. The lens, fortunately, is a little more contemporary: the Nikon AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF ED. That’s quite a collection of acronyms, but it’s a capable macro lens that should allow me to get up close and personal with the miniature horrors hiding in nature. My local wetlands provide the setting, and I’m hoping that a few creepy plants, cobwebs and unsettling details might provide the perfect subjects for this unusual film stock.

Of course, Halloween itself is a curious tradition. Originally associated with the pagan festival marking the beginning of winter, it was subsequently appropriated by Christianity as the evening before All Saints’ Day. The Christians do love to crash a party. And for those who prefer their religious history with a little Protestant resentment, 31 October is also Reformation Day, commemorating Martin Luther’s famous 95 Theses. Killjoys. Personally, I’m probably more Methodist than Catholic when it comes to handing out treats, and the neighbourhood children shouldn’t expect too much generosity from my doorstep. Nevertheless, I can’t stop everyone else from having their fun, so let’s see whether this festive film can deliver something worth celebrating.

Kodak Gold, Halloween Graphics and Missed Opportunities

The first thing to remember about Kono Boo! is that, beneath its Halloween mask, we’re essentially shooting Kodak Gold. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Kodak Gold is known for its warm, cheerful colours, which are wonderful for holiday snaps but perhaps a little antithetical to the cold, sinister atmosphere we’re trying to create here. Something grainier, with cooler tones, might have been a more appropriate choice. Orwo NC500 springs to mind, although my previous experience with Ilford Ilfocolor 400 has already provided enough colour-related nightmares to last a lifetime.

Unfortunately, the Halloween graphics don’t really make their presence felt under most conditions. It’s only in darker scenes or areas of high contrast that those pre-exposed designs begin to emerge, and even then, the results can be rather underwhelming. In many of my photographs, the subject itself does most of the heavy lifting, while the Halloween imagery remains frustratingly inconspicuous. The film isn’t entirely without merit, but it certainly requires a little more thought than simply loading a roll and hoping for the best.

One thing that becomes clear during the walk is that I haven’t really optimised my photography for the characteristics of the film. I’ve been approaching it much as I would any other roll of colour negative film, rather than considering how the pre-exposed designs might interact with the composition. Perhaps the real trick is to shoot outdoors at night, using flash with a point-and-shoot camera. The resulting black backgrounds would provide a much better canvas for those cartoonish Halloween graphics, allowing them to stand out instead of disappearing into the scenery. It’s an approach I’ll have to investigate another time.

There are some interesting moments, particularly when I experiment with double exposures. I’ve had plenty of experience with multiple exposures over the years, although most of mine have been accidental, especially when using older medium-format cameras that require the shutter to be cocked between frames. Here, though, the technique offers some intriguing possibilities, and I suspect there’s enough potential to justify a dedicated video in the future.

A Questionable Conclusion

So, have I managed to capture the creepiness of Halloween? Probably not. Has Kono Boo! delivered the scares? Not really. But the experiment has been fun, and I think there’s something to be learned from the experience. Pre-exposed film isn’t necessarily going to do all the work for you, and if you want to make the most of it, you need to consider your subjects, lighting and composition carefully. Otherwise, you’re likely to end up with ordinary photographs wearing a rather unconvincing Halloween costume.

Ultimately, these photographs look more like nature photography than Halloween pictures but perhaps that’s the point. Not everything needs to be terrifying, and sometimes the most interesting images emerge when a photographic experiment doesn’t quite go according to plan. Kono Boo! hasn’t transformed my local wetlands into a landscape of supernatural dread, but it has encouraged me to think differently about pre-exposed film and the way I approach my subjects.

Let me know in the comments whether any of these photographs inspire existential dread. Boredom doesn’t count.