by Grouch
This post is in addition to what Kingston has posted earlier on yesterday…
However, I’m going to provide with my version of what I mean by “think before you shoot”.
I shall try to make this easy to understand, and hopefully you will apply this to your everyday event covering duties ^^
I’m sure some of our dear (silent) readers here might remember me saying (last year), “What do you want to shoot? What do you want to tell?”
I remember very clearly, my first photography student was Suerya and we were covering Science Fiesta together, she- this lucky girl, got to use PPC’s lens on her first event… (heh heh heh I think it was the 24-70L)
Instead of grabbing the camera and taking a few photos to show her how things should have been done, I asked her one very simple question- “What do you want to shoot?”
We were at the egg throwing station, where the eggs are not supposed to break even as they were being thrown from the 4th storey. Suerya would tell me what she wanted to shoot, and I would follow her answer by the next question, “What do you want to tell the audience which will be looking at your picture?”
“So where would you try to take this photo from?”
POINT ONE: WHAT IS YOUR PHOTO TRYING TO PORTRAY?
In event photography:
Before you take any photo (especially especially event photography), ask yourself what do you want to tell the person who will be looking at your photos? Who will be looking at your photos?
Don’t forget, the photos that you take are not only for yourself to see. You are shooting for the student and staff population, but no doubt a very diverse group. More often than not, it’s more advisable to shoot photos that are easy to understand, instead of some artsie, difficult to understand photograph.
Photography is like writing a speech in picture format. You are telling a story using one or a series of photographs, and it has to be tailored to your “target audience”. By doing so, the people looking at your photographs would have a better idea of what you are trying to tell them instead of them scratching their heads, looking at a photo with no head or tail.
I would say more than 50% of your audience are not so into the artsie fartsie stuff so keeping it sweet and simple would be the way to go. You won’t go using JC vocabulary talking to a bunch of Primary School kids, right?
TIP 1: Arrive at your event location early, get your settings right and read the programme booklet. Anticipate what will happen (arrival of GOH, standing ovations, prize presentations that might garner audience response) and when these things do happen, make sure you are there ready for that moment.
In photography as an art form:
The previous points mentioned still do apply.
Still, consider who your target audience is, and whether they will understand what you are trying to portray. More often than not in an artistic exhibition whereby you will anticipate that the audience will be unable to understand what you are shooting, the captions in the photo will help to provide with the “head and tail” of the story you’re trying to tell.
TIP 2: When you see something that catches your eye, visualize how you want the end product to look like. By visualizing how you want the photo to look like, it’s easier for you to choose what lens you would use for that photo, and if you want it to be underexposed/overexposed, you underexpose/overexpose the photo accordingly. Try to get the intended shot as much as you can on your camera. Also at the same time, confirm that the end product portrays what you want to tell your audience before you click the shutter. If you require, do some final touch-ups in LR or PS to achieve your final intended product.
POINT 2: HOW WOULD YOU TAKE THAT PHOTO?
Some of the points have already been covered above, such as what lens you would use and the settings on your camera.
Lai lai lai, do tutorial questions-
Q1. If you want to shoot a waterfall and you want the water to look very smooth, what settings would you shoot at? I won’t tell you which mode to use because that is up to you to think about… (Cannot everything tell you how to do, in the end you all never think…)
Q2. You are at the hall, where the CNY celebrations are. The group of Choir performers will be coming in from the back of the hall, (assuming that you have anticipated that to happen) where would you position yourself to capture that entrance?
Q3. You are shooting an event on a sunny day. How would you ensure that there would be no back lighting and shadows on your subject’s face?
This one I give you all some possible answers:
1. If possible, shift your subjects some where that is less sunny.
2. Use fill flash
3. Don’t take photos from an angle that would cause your subject’s face to be in complete shadow such as when they are bending down.
As you can already tell by my lengthy post, photography is storytelling with a purpose. (erm, WAIT! Journalism is storytelling with a purpose but the idea is almost the same lar...) Whereas journalism takes you maybe a good half an hour to come up with a body of text, photography takes you roughly half a minute to DELIBERATE (meaning you have to think a lot, if no need to think a lot, 5 sec should be enough) about your photo idea.
Hence kids, before you see something nice and go "Oooooooh!!!" and bring your camera up to your face, please think properly about how you want to present the pretty scene. You don't want to end up with a bunch of pretty photos that mean nothing. At the end of the day, you'll get sick of them and throw them aside. What matters in a photo is the meaning you give to it. You can have a photo that doesn't look 100% aesthetically beautiful, but with 100% meaning, your photo is valuable...
The meaning behind our motto "your moments our calling" is not just capturing other people's moments, but making these moments mean something to us. At such, then can we truly produce photos that are wonderful.
So this is what I mean by thinking before you shoot… King is the more technical one… Mine is the more erm, ideological one.
If you don't understand me also, can come and ask me or buzz me online ^^
My shitty week is ovah!! HAHAHA!
On hindsight, my post seem more indigestible than King's.
If sound too cheem sorry la, my head is still swimming in a bunch of crazy Journ notes, trying to "serve the public" by "providing independent verifiable facts... through observation and investigation".
=DD
