Candid Photography

I have been the second photographer at quite a few weddings over the past year now and have been commissioned to provide candid images from these wedding by a colleague of mine

So what is candid photography? candid photography is photography that focuses on spontaneity rather than a technique, which focus on events rather than focusing on setting up a staged situation or pre prepaired  camera setup.

Candid photography is best described as un-posed and unplanned. This is in contrast to classic photography, which includes aspects such as carefully staged portrait photography, landscape photography or still life etc. Candid photography catches moments of life as they happen usually of people when the subject is unaware that a photograph is being taken


The images recorded are often private, they involve people in close relation to something they do, or they involve people's relation to each other. Candids are the kinds of pictures taken at children's birthday parties and on Christmas morning, opening the presents or pictures or what a wedding photographer takes at the reception, of people dancing, eating, and socializing with other. I have included some candid images here.These were taken at some of my most recent  weddings over the last couple of months

The shots above were taken from a local wedding which was planned with a fifties style theme. I find shooting this kind of image has to be taken at the "decisive moment" this is the moment when I feel the shot will have the most amount of impact which can be very rewarding. I find the best shots are always taken when your subject is totally unaware that the shot is being taken. These moments tend to be when the subject is just carrying on with their everyday activities and are just acting naturally. Most of my images tend to be taken from a distance where I am not intrusive to my subject. Posed or preplanned images do not possess any of characteristics that a candid image produces and cannot show the spontaneity, humour,fun etc

Henri Cartier Bresson the famous French photographer might be considered as the master in the art of candid photography, capturing the "decisive moment" in everyday life which he recorded in a unique moment in time.I have tried to capture this "unique moment" in my photography shown above at another wedding I photographed recently

Flash Techniques

Over the last 6 months I have been using even more flash in my photography. I bought a Canon 430EX 2 speed-light for some weddings I was photographing to assist me with enhancing my images and to use  mainly as fill in flash 


Jim my work colleague being a bit of an expert on the subject has been giving me lots of tuition on using speed-lights recently and at long last I think I have mastered these wonderful gadgets


At first I thought like everybody else,stick it on auto and fire away. Wrong, this is the worst thing you can do with such a great piece of equipment, you must learn how to use it and get to balance your flash with ambient light, the results can be amazing


It took me some time to understand the flash and learn how to use it but now I think i am reaping benefits of my studies


At first I didn't understand sync speeds but after some studying,reading and watching video's I have finally got my head around them now. I understand the science of the subject now and everything has fell into place


Here's a brief explanation of sync speeds and what they do:


Sync speed is the fastest shutter speed you can use with that flash with your camera 


When you take a picture, the shutter opens and closes to let light strike the image sensor. When it does so, the shutter is fully open for a very short time. If the shutter speed is too fast, the burst of light from the flash won't fully expose all parts of the image sensor and part of the scene won't be captured in the image. The fastest shutter speed that can be used is called the flash synchronization speed and is usually between 1/125-1/500 second. My Canon 7 D uses a sync of 1/250th sec. If you select a faster shutter speed directly or indirectly, most cameras will override you and lower it. The shutter works with two curtains, a front and rear (sometimes called first and second curtains). The shutter opens when the front curtain slides out of the way and ends when the rear curtain slides to close it. The flash fires either when the shutter first fully opens or just before it's about to close.

Shown here are some images that explain the process

(Top row) Front/first curtain sync (the usual mode) means the flash fires when the shutter's front curtain first fully opens to expose the image sensor.

• (Bottom row) Rear/second curtain sync means the flash fires just before the shutter's rear curtain starts to close to end the exposure.

A focal plane shutter opens a curtain to begin an exposure and closes a second curtain to end it. At fast shutter speeds (top) the second curtain starts to end the exposure before the first curtain has fully opened so the two curtains form a slit traveling across the image sensor. Flash would only expose the area uncovered by the slit between the two rapidly moving curtains. At the flash sync speed and slower (bottom) the second curtain doesn't start to close until the first one is fully open.  
 

Images from location shooting (Seascapes)

The shot above was taken on Bamburough beach in Northumbria at 6.55 am

I am in the process of producing some practice/development shots taken at various locations in and around the uk to use as evidence for my course work. I will be producing my final images later in the course


The images displayed here are all location shots taken at various outdoor locations using a variety of different methods,skills and techniques which have helped me to develop my photography even further and hopefully take it to the next level.


 T


I  am constantly trying  to develop my photography even further, learning new skills and techniques which I hope will help improve my photography and add to my creativity


The images diplayed here are not by best and far from it. There are a lot of times in photography where I end up feeling very dismayed  frustrated  and disillusioned mainly because the 3 most important elements to produce a good image do not always come together and are not always evident at the same time


The 3 main elements of a good image which I consider to be really important are:


1- Really good composition 
2- Good subject matter or location 
3- Excellent lighting 


I always pre plan my images and know exactly what content I want to show in my images. I compose my images with great care and will not settle for "that will do" If I cant' compose the shot or some of the elements are missing I don't take the shot


I find I am becoming more selective with my image content and don't agree with the philosophy of taking 20 images of the same shot and hope to to achieve at least one decent one. With this type of image taking the photographer is not considering composition,lighting etc and in artist's terms will never produce a masterpiece

This shot here is all about being at the right place at the right time. This foam was created when the tide was coming back into an estuary at a phonominal rate, 2 minutes after this shot was taken the foam had dispersed and the shot was lost

Again the lighting here was to severe.The shot was taken early in the afternoon and the brightness reflected of the foam was very intense which was washing out my image. To remedy this condition I could'd reduce the intensity of the shot by reducing the ISO as I was already on my camera's lowest ISO setting of 100. I always try to shoot at 100 as this setting always retains the most detail and clarity.The only other technique's I had avaiable to me were to increase my shutter speed or choose a higher F stop and use a smaller apperture. As the shot was a landscape I chose a higher Fstop of F11 from F8 whch halfed the light again entering the camera reducing the light intensity. Using F11 enabled me to increase my depth of field which is more suited to a landscape shot

This shot was taken at 2 pm in the afternoon whch is not an ideal time to take this sort of shot. The sun was high in the sky with brilliant sunshine which does not give the photo any kind of depth and form and produces vivid blue skies which are not pleasing to the eye. 

I had to travel to this venue just befor sunrise to record the ideal shot but when I arrived the sky was so dull and bland with no sunlight evident that I abbandoned the shoot. We stayed at this location all afternoon hoping to capture the castle as the sun went down tried but unfortunately after this shot was taken the skies clouded over again whch was another wasted day

The sun did break but this was the middle of the afternoon.This was the only time on this particular day when the sun broke which enabled me to record a half decent image

I took this shot just as the sun was going down but again 1 of the 3 elements let me down. The lighting was missing which was so poor,flat and uninteresting which created a pretty flat image

This shot would have been far better taken ist thing in the morning or just before dusk when we have a low level lighting which is far superior and produces shadows, depth and form. The ideal lighting conditions for most out door photography and especially landscapes is what's known as the golden hour. This is the time of day just after sunrise and just before dusk when the sun  produces a lovely rich type of  warm light that is only produced at these times of the day. An example of this can be seen in my first shot at the top of the page whch has captured the golden hour lighting as the sun was coming up over the horizon, 2 minutes later this special kind of light had disappeared

Shown below are a set of images I took of Bamborough castle in Northumbria which shows the ever changing light conditions taken over a couple of minutes. The images show the lighting changing the colour of the clouds from pinky blues to orange just before the sun goes down


I had vistited this location on a couple of previous nights trying to compose some nice cloudscapes but the clouds and lighting were not evident  and a decent image would have proved inpossible. On this particular night everything was perfect,location,composition and lighting all critical elemets to produce a good photograph


I took the images below with a budget compact point and shoot pocket camera lent to me by a friend as I had earlier had an accident with my 7D camera and dropped it in the sea

It just goes to show you don't need to have the best camera in the world to produce some lovely images, after all a camera is only a box with a hole in it. I just made sure I got the key elements correct,location,lighting composition and timing

The meta data shown here in this grab shows a shutter speed of 1/40 sec which any photographer knows, hand holding a camera at this speed will result in blurred images. I remedied the camera shake by mounting the camera onto my tripod, setting the camera settings onto a 2 second self timer which eliminated any evidence of camera shake

This camera was lent to me by a friend in an emegency and didnt have any manual modes. The ISO of the camera did go up to 800 but I have learnt from experience using these compact cameras with high end ISO's you end up with extremely high noise levels which can ruin the shot

As I had my tripod at hand I could still use the camera's lowest ISO which was a 100 to maintain clarity with hardly any noise visible