Sweater weather
For the first genuinely cold week and every big-coat photo that came with it.
Orange everything
For the leaves, the parks and the squash that took over every menu.
Halloween
For the costume photos, the carving mess and the flash frames from the party.
Cosy, cold, funny
For the indoor half of October, which is most of it after the clocks change.
How to pick the photos
October photographs itself, which is the problem: a dump of leaves and pumpkins looks like everyone else's. Put people in it.
- Every second photo should have a face. Leaves, then a friend in the leaves. A pumpkin, then someone holding it badly. The alternation is what stops it becoming a leaf album.
- Shoot the grey days too. Rain on a window, wet pavement reflecting a shop sign. An all-sunshine October is a lie and reads as one.
- Halloween goes at the end. Costume photos are the loudest frames in the set, so let them close it rather than swamp the first swipe.
- Keep the flash photos. Dark by five means most of the month happens under indoor light, and hard flash suits October better than a soft filter does.
- One texture close-up. A knitted sleeve, a candle, steam off a mug.
Twelve photos, roughly five outdoors, five indoors and two in costume, is the ratio that keeps an October dump from turning into a nature walk.
Questions people ask
What are good October photo dump captions?
Short lowercase lines about cold, colour or Halloween. "knitwear season, officially" or "october: candles, chaos, cold feet" beat generic autumn quotes because they sound like a person rather than a poster.
Do I need a separate Halloween post?
Only if you have more than four or five costume photos. Otherwise put them at the end of the October dump, where they work as the finale.
How do I photograph autumn leaves without it looking like stock?
Shoot into the light so the leaves glow, rather than down at the ground, and put a person in the frame. Backlit and occupied beats overhead and empty every time.
What do I do about it getting dark so early?
Move the daylight photos to lunchtime and let the evenings be flash photos. October evenings are indoor and orange, and a hard flash suits that better than trying to fake daylight.