How can you not love a holiday that encourages you to dress up in costume, invites children to go from home to home demanding candy from strangers, and promises the annual rising of the toy-laden Great Pumpkin?

Yup, Halloween is pretty darn great.

And now that it’s just around the corner, we’ve put together a guide to help you get great photos on our favorite holiday.

Read on for creative ideas for Halloween shots, tips on how to carve your pumpkins to make them more photogenic, even instructions for making an anatomically-correct thoracic cavity cake!

Get out your glowsticks and get to work!

Here in the States, we celebrate our independence every 4th of July by blowing up things in the sky.

In fact, ever since Taoist monks created fireworks, cultures around the globe have used them to ward off evil spirits, pray for happiness, celebrate birth, death, weddings, the new year… just about anything.

Consider it a basic truth of the human condition: we like things that go boom.

And for almost as long as fireworks have been around, photographers have been taking dark and blurry photos of them.

But listen up: Firecracker photography may seem difficult, but follow some simple rules and you’re virtually guaranteed good results.

It’s all about the D&B. (Dark and blurry.) If you’re a grad student in photography, D&B is your recipe for success. If you’re trying to shoot a concert, however, chances are D&B is just the best you can do.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Follow a few simple guidelines (“High ISO is your friend”, “Rapidly changing lights mean that your light meter is worthless–shoot in manual”) and your concert photos will sing. (Sorry!)

Our friend Haje points us to two guides on taking fantastic concert photographs, one geared toward small venues and one he wrote for larger venues.

(See the bottom of this post or our Flickr group for some fantastic concert photography.)

Great Concert Photos: Large Venues
www.photocritic.org/2006/live-band-concert-photography

Great Concert Photos: Small Venues
on-no.net/concert-photography

Hurly proved an important point in Episode 9 when he built the first golf course on a tropical island full of polar bears and strange mechanical monsters — everyone can use a little more fun.

Since photos and fun are what Photojojo is all about, we figured it was time we found you some toys.

From photo rubik’s cubes, to puzzle frames, to photo tic-tac-toe boards, we’ve found photo toys every parent will love.

Don’t have kids? Well, maybe you know one. Or maybe you are one. In any case, these photo-flaunting toys are fun for the young and old alike!

Photojojo’s Photo Toys Guide
www.photojojo.com/content/guides/photo-toys/

Whether you call him Pee, Kaka, Tata, Chichi, Babbu, or “My old Man”, you’ve probably got one, and he probably doesn’t hear from you often enough.

With Father’s Day just a couple weeks away, he’s counting on you to come through with yet another rocking tie.

But we know that you know that we know that you can do better this year, so we dug up a few photo-fab doodads we thought the old man might enjoy.

And hey, if it’s gotta be a tie, we’ve got one of those, too.

Photojojo’s Father’s Day Photo Gifts
www.photojojo.com/content/photojojo-original/fathers-day-photo-gifts/

Your mom, your best friend who just became a new mom, Stacy’s Mom, they all share something in common: they’re not appreciated nearly enough. With Mother’s Day just days away, you’ve still got time to change that.

What’s that you say? Mother’s Day just days away?

Yeah, Sunday, May 14th(!)

We’ll give you a hand. We’ve compiled a last-minute list of 5 awesome photo gifts that the mothers in your life will adore.

Photojojo’s 5 Great Photo Gifts for Mom
www.photojojo.com

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”

It’s advice we would all do well to take.

We think it’s high time you got some recognition for all those gorgeous photos you’ve been taking. You know the photos we’re talking about. The ones you knew were gonna be great the minute you clicked the shutter. The ones that made you gasp when you saw them on your computer. Time to share them with the world.

Luckily, getting your images in front of a panel of judges is easier than it’s ever been. Galleries, magazines, and photo agencies are all looking for fresh new talent as we speak. We’ve identified some of the best to get you started.

Submit today. We’re rooting for you.

The 7 Best Photo Contests to Enter Today 
www.photojojo.com

Adjustable White Balance?

Exposure Compensation?

User Selectable Metering Modes?

Did you forget to show up for Digital Demystification 101?

Yeah, so did Photojojo.

Lucky for both of us, the fine lads at photonotes.org took notes and they’ve put together two amazing tools to help you figure out those tiny hunks of plastic and silicon.

Tool #1: Think of it as the Rosetta Stone for digital cameras. On a single page, you’ll see dozens upon dozens of camera screen symbols and their meanings. Don’t know what that square with the three squares stacked behind it means? Just scroll through the page until you see the icon that’s got your goat.

Tool #2: The photo terms dictionary. Look up “Dioptric adjustment”, the Rule of Thirds, or anything else that’s been vexing you. We bet our bottom dollar, it’s in there.

Digital Camera Symbols, Demystified!
www.photonotes.org/cgi-bin/view.pl?letter=!

See also…
Photo Terms Dictionary