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.

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 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.

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

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.