As an amateur photographer like many of you, I’m always looking for an excuse to shoot. Whether it be a day out, a wedding (as a guest), birthday party and the list goes on..
Because of this, the people close to me are used to me carrying a camera everywhere and posting out of context, random images to my personal Facebook wall on a very regular basis. I think as a result of this I have made it a bit of a personal responsibility to document events in my life and for others close to me. Maybe it’s so in the future I can look back happily nostalgic, or even to review my own photography, but for whatever reason it means that if you invite me to a party, gathering, or day out, you will end up with some images to remember it.
I think everyone has someone like this in their family or their group of friends and when I think back, my Grandad was that person. He would film all the family occasions with his cine-camera and every now and again we would have an evening to enjoy the images & film he’d taken on his slide projector.
These images are demonstrating exactly the kind of documentary photography that I have come to love. The opportunity came about when I was kindly invited as a guest to a birthday party. I even remember saying to my better half whether I should take the camera and “Do you think they would mind if I took images for the evening?” but then I answered my own question with “Why wouldn’t they? It’s capturing a beautiful moment in their life.” So I packed as light as I could, as after all, I was a guest as well as the unofficial photographer.
Once I arrived, I set up the basic camera settings that I would use for the night. In my case this meant classic chrome, ISO AUTO, shutter set to AUTO and aperture set to f/1.4 (to keep the ISO to a minimum in the low light environment).
I started by enjoying a snack or two (of course!) and then looking around the room for the best costumes (fancy dress theme was the letter ‘T’), best expressions and where the best lighting was in the room. As you may or may not know my favourite set up is the X-E2 with XF35mm lens, this night was no exception. I had only this gear with me and a spare battery just in case.
After the initial ‘Venue set up shots’ I began to focus my attention to people, being people – looking for those little moments and expressions that may otherwise be missed. From the happy & silly to the indifferent, any moment that could portray emotional involvement with the event would be snapped.
The evening was going well and mingling had just started to make good pace when something brilliant happened – a magician turned up! And what was even better? Simple, this guy was superb. He immediately had people huddled in small groups laughing and puzzling over his close-up magic wonderment. This was the perfect element for me to focus on, I wanted to capture the suspense, surprise and bemusement that followed after each and every trick.
My approach here was to keep an eye on where the ‘actual’ excitement was in each moment. For example it could be the expression of an individual, the trick itself, the movement in the image etc. These are some of my images hopefully showing just that.
I did occasionally stray away from the automatic focus and automatic shutter to help capture this fast fingered magician in motion.
What is the next essential part of any family party?…. Yes, you’re right, it’s dancing! 😉 And not just any old songs either, it had to be the ‘classic’ Macarena.
It’s all about those little moments that create one collage of memories and emotions caught in time.
And most importantly, trying to capture the single most significant moment that sums up the whole event. The shot below shows my best attempt at this. Here you can see the family coming together after a rousing speech and the DJ reflects perfectly how their emotion is shared outwards by others around them.
So the question is… are YOU that photography friend that everyone knows? Are you the one who makes it your passion to capture life as it happens for you and for your family? If so, I salute you! If your answer is no, why not give it a go? It will expand your skills, your confidence and very importantly it will develop your own style further. For me, if you haven’t noticed, I can’t help but shoot a lot of Dutch Angle style, rightly or wrongly, this is part of my style that has developed over time.
Please share your own experiences and thoughts in the comments below.
Happy Shooting! 🙂
Brilliant post, I am definitely that friend 👍 haha
That’s great to hear! 🙂
Great post, I’m that guy as well. Currently sporting only an iPhone. Had a Sony RX100 mk3 but I wasn’t satisfied with the lowlight capabilities. Now looking for a Fuji. Do you shoot with the X100 as well. How would you describe the 1,4 vs 2,0 aperture in terms of lowlight capabilities? And the 35mm vs 50mm field of view in indoor environment and people subjects. Can’t decid which solution to go for. Thanks!
Hi Mikael, thanks for your comment! The first camera that got me into proper photography was the X100 and I still love it. The low-light capabilities for the X100 are superb – the ISO on all of our cameras can be pushed to the limit and the images will still look good. I think that when the image does start to get noisy it is a film like grain that can actually ‘add’ to a shot. The XF35mm lens (53mm – 135mm equivalent) I personally believe it is more versatile overall, you can shoot landscape, low-light, street, portraits without any problems. I have many colleagues, however, that prefer the 23mm (35mm equivalent) on the X100 series as it fits more into the frame, delivers more impactful landscapes and is super quiet & discrete (perfect for street shooting). I always found with the X100 that I tended to crop a bit to get the framing that I wanted, now that is most likely because of my amateur skills, but it may be that I always actually wanted the XF35mm (53mm equiv) framing that I now get from my X-E2. I crop far less often and therefore keep all the resolution of my image. I hope this helps. Dale 🙂
Thanks a lot for your answer. Sounds like I don’t have to worry about the low-light capabilities and its more up to my personal taste whether I should go for 35 or 50 ff eqv. focal length. The iPhone has 35 so I can judge from that and see if I feel comfortable with that framing.
Excellent blog – as always. So great to see a large organisation taking the time to engage the public by celebrating photography in a personable way. Keep up the good work.
great post, i don’t mind doing this on my own accord however when your close friends start asking “can you please bring your camera to take some photos” then that annoys me. I thought i was being invited as a guest not an unpaid photographer. Let me know how you feel or deal with this?
I’ve been “invited” to a wedding and then asked to shoot for free. It meant I didn’t enjoy the day at all because I was feeling pressure to make sure I deliver nice images despite knowing full well that I’m not a professional wedding photographer. I’ve also been given a camera by a groom’s father (different wedding) and asked to shoot on it so he is in some of ‘his’ images. It was using a Nikon that I’d never used before and again made me feel uneasy. Next time it happens I think I’ll just outright refuse. Marc