Candid photos are difficult to take properly. If you know what you’re doing, you can capture that perfectly timed moment, full of emotion and unique character. But these moments are brief at best, and incredibly easy to miss out on. But if you are prepared and knowledgeable, you’ll have the tools you need to take that instant opportunity.
Flash is the Enemy
Camera flashes are bright and overpowering – there’s a reason that professional photographers often carry around large light diffusers. These prevent the flash from washing out skin-tones or causing harsh shadows. When out and about, you’ll want to rely on the ambient light around you more. This helps capture the moment exactly as-is, and also keeps you from having to worry about planning around your flash.
There are two major tips for using ambient lighting:
- Set the exposure of your camera accordingly – high for low-light and low for high-light
- Position yourself so your subjects are lit favorably. The key to candid lighting is to make sure you are in place, so your subjects don’t have to pose and position themselves.
Don’t Hold Out
The number of photos that photographers take is often framed as a joke. But as a general rule of thumb, only 5% of photos will be worth saving. Even if you think the moment is perfect, you never know when someone is blinking, or is caught in an awkward position, or otherwise just not ‘photo-worthy’ in the heat of the moment. Amateur photographers might spend much of their time quibbling over whether or not they’ve set up the perfect shot, but this could cause you to miss even more great photos.
Burst/Drive Mode is Your Friend
Most modern cameras – and a few camera phones – have an optional multi-photo mode installed. Canon cameras call this their ‘drive mode’ while Nikon cameras call it ‘burst mode’ either way, the idea is the same: continuously take high-quality images while the shutter button is held down. This essentially turns your photography camera into a video camera, allowing you to go through your candid moments frame-by-frame and find those perfect fraction-of-a-second moments.
Photography as an art is full of little tips, methods, techniques, and guides for getting the most out of your equipment. These 3 tips are just the start of getting the most out of those candid moments that you share with friends and family, but they certainly aren’t the end. But for every photographer, understanding these basic concepts is critical to capturing the raw emotion of a candid moment.