Candid Portrait/Event Photography

ShaolinTiger posted this at 1:42 pm on Friday, July 14, 2006 —

Personally I’d say when it comes to photographing landscapes and still life I’m already pretty good, I naturally understand the composition for buildings, scenery and things that don’t have facial expressions.

When it come to people, I’m a beginner, I rarely pointed my Canon A70 at people, shooting people was never very interesting for me, only during parties, then I seemed to have a talent for the candid shot, capturing the moment rather than cheesy smiles and pre-posed stances.

From this I branched into street photography, which is candid for me, to bring out the true feeling, eye contact is good but not in a posed way as demonstrated by Lanatir below, you can have a eye contact portrait without it looked manufactured.

I like to try and capture some kind of emotion, capture a peice of the moment, not just some people facing the camera and smiling over and over.

Waiting..

I like to feel something when I look at the picture, not just go next..next..next..

For me this the essence of capturing an event, the same goes for weddings, nowdays this style has a label it’s called photojournalism style..for me, I just call it real.

I like to use a narrow depth of focus to give a real pop to the subject.

You wrote what?

You can capture many emotions in this manner, when people don’t expect it, boredom, frustration, happiness, laughter, waiting etc..

This is my first effort of event style photography with my new SLR camera, so I have a lot to learn still, these are just my few tips from past experience.

It’s good to use SLOW flash setting to make people stand out, and any motion in the background will be blurred.

I also like to frame the subject with other people, or some objects like a glass to bring them out and add interest.

Haha!

These were all taken with a very cheap prime Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF.

Taking a picture of you taking a picture of me..

They aren’t the best pictures in the world, but I’m just starting out..

I hope my learning journey can help you too.

All were processed from RAW last night, my RAW workflow is still a bit hit and miss, I need to work on that.

That’s all for now ;)

You can view the whole set here.

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1,796 views - Filed under: Nikon,Photography,Portrait

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6 Comments »

88

Comment by Lanatir

July 14, 2006 @ 2:53 pm


in the usage of flash, have u tried bouncing your flash? use the 80/20 rule to bounce 80% of the light off the ceiling and 20% of the light goes forward to soften the shadows caused by the light bounced off the ceiling. this works when u have a low ceiling and a flash strong enough to bounce off it (check guide number of the flash).

if u like, u can also make a DIY bounce card to strap onto the flash. the bigger the bounce card the better.

of cause there are tools like omnibounce and lightsphere to help u nowadays as well.

90

Comment by Jerry

July 14, 2006 @ 10:55 pm


Ermm.. Don’t mind if I ask, what is “50mm f/1.8D AF”? and can anyone explain about the ISO settings?

91

Comment by ShaolinTiger

July 15, 2006 @ 1:47 am


Lanatir: I have yet to learn about bounce flash, I’m using on board so not sure how, will research abit about bounce cards and see what I can do.

Jerry: Will explain ISO, aperture soon, just need the time because I want to show examples with pictures rather than just a bunch of text. Within the next couple of weeks I should get the series up. The 50mm f/1.8D is a lens made by Nikkon, it’s a prime lens which means it has no ‘zoom’ the focal length is fixed at 50mm so you have to move yourself in and out rather than crop the picture with a zoom. Will explain more later!

92

Comment by Terry

July 15, 2006 @ 10:59 am


be known that facial expression or human emotions is the hardest thing to capture in photography. it took up a whole modules in my uni and out of 100 photographers, only 2 or 3 have the natural talent for it.

Not much so on practise, but more to fucking used to your damn camera that you’ll bend it at will when it comes to a spontanous response for that perfect lighting and perfect everything !

best place to practise is when you drive me to petaling street and buy me a Charcoal fried Hokkien Mee while u shoot happily :P

94

Comment by KY

July 16, 2006 @ 7:16 pm


hey, i know that dude!

120

Comment by G-`FerRo

July 21, 2006 @ 9:29 pm


Hi there.. just stumble upon your site… btw nice capture … good exposure and sharp images …

I assume u r using D70s .. just wondering what lens did u use for this shot?

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