How to take candid photos like a pro!
I’ve been photographing events for well over a decade now! (Wild)
While I love the mingling and chats and setting up posed photos, I’ve found I really have a love of stepping back a smidgen and catching you and your guests in natural, candid moments.
These days clients really love this style of mine and seek me out for my candids - so here’s a few tips on how to get the best candids at events!
Gear. It’s not secret that a lens with a longer focal length, will allow you to photograph people from further away. When I’m shooting events, I keep two cameras on me - one with a standard 24-70mm f2.8 lens (which is wider and great for speeches, posed photos, whole room shots, etc) and then a 70-200mm f2.8 lens as well. It’s the longer 200mm end of that lens that allows me to zoom in on people from across the room, when maybe they’re not aware of me and they’re fully immersed in their conversation or happy moments! NOT having a camera fully up in someones face is the best way for natural moments!
For lens context: You can see here, I’m taking this photo of myself on my 24-70mm lens (as its a wider shot, you can see my full body!), and I have the longer 70-200mm lens on my hip - the quality zoom lenses are often physically larger/longer too.
Light. No doubt, natural light and daylight make a pretty photo! At this wedding above, the room had giant windows on two of the four walls, so the space was super bright with soft light bouncing onto all the guests from all the creamy walls. I will always JUMP at a daytime event, especially outdoors/in a stunning room - it elevates photos so much!
Doing Something. This is always what I look for - guests facing me, in a group conversation, drinking a wine, looking at food (never actually eating), taking a group photo or a selfie. Never just looking bored or not emoting in some way, always Doing Something. There’s often out-of-focus heads or shoulders, such as in the photo top right, that give context to the subject in the candid too, that they’re listening in on a funny conversation, someones taking a photo of them, etc.
Last tips:
Keep it tight - head and shoulders make the best candids.
Don’t forget to shoot vertical when you can! Landscape format will always have its place, but we live in a vertical-content world these days and vertical photos will always get more love and usage from viewers and subjects.
These are closeups of people in the middle of interacting - don’t do them dirty with weird eyes or mouths. Always shoot a burst of a few frames and use the best one!
Fairy lights in the background will always improve your photos, 100% success rate.
Now get out there and start candiding! And if you love this style and have an event or wedding coming up, let’s have a chat! xx