.

The golden rule is to always carry a camera, whether this is your DSLR and your full kit or a point and shoot in your pocket, it doesn’t really matter.  Make sure you have a good memory card and a spare battery with you as you should expect to take LOADS of photo’s.

Go somewhere where there is lots going on such as a town centre, a park where people are walking dogs or an event such as a country show or a race meeting.

By fabiogis50

By fabiogis50

 

Don’t push your luck

Look for situations where people are doing things or alking to other people.  This will often help to capture emotion in your subjects face and add interest and story to the photograph.  If you take a zoom lens with you then this will help to capture scenes from afar and keep the feeling natural as the subject/s will feel more at ease than if you are right on top of them with a lens in their face!  If you can fade into the background then you are more likely to be able to capture images where the scene is truly natural.  Try not to make yourself too obvious, dont hide behind a corner and make yourself look suspicious, try and take some shots without holding the camera up, the beauty of the digital age is that if you dont like the shots you can delete them without any expenditure (apart from a bit of battery!!).

Working with animals

Don’t use a flash and try to shoot in continuous mode, I usually do this when taking photos of people or animals as each photos captures something slightly different and as the subjects expression or emotion changes you can literally choose the best one for the effect you are trying to achieve.  I took 650 photos on a rip to a zoo recently but actually only used about 20 of these, if I hadn’t taken so many (a lot of which were of similar scenes) then I dont think I would have anything to show for my time with the animals!

By mark sebastian

By mark sebastian

Mix it up

Try and use different effects, black and white, depth of field and motion blurs can all be used to enhance the photos.  If you include some objects in the foreground such as other people or flowers etc then this can also add to a great candid shot.  There are plenty of post process tutorial sites that can add effects to your photos that will bring them to life and add a bit of zing, such as:

Keep it simple

Set your camera up for a fast shutter speed and keep all other settings and general setup simple, the opportunity of a good candid shot may only last a second and you don’t want to miss out.

By PhotoFM.com

By PhotoFM.com

By PhotoFM.com

By PhotoFM.com

 

By incendiarymind

By incendiarymind

 

By chatfly

By chatfly

 

By pikkabbu

By pikkabbu

 

By Chris Blakeley

By Chris Blakeley

 

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By Adam Pniak

 

By an untrained eye

By an untrained eye

 

By william c hutton jr

By william c hutton jr

 

By Chris Blakeley

By Chris Blakeley

 

By Carlo Nicora (Wedding and Honeymoon)

By Carlo Nicora (Wedding and Honeymoon)

 

By Samuel G*zé

By Samuel G*zé

 

By itatton

By itatton