How To Shoot Candid Pictures In A festival Or A public Street.

Essentials Of Candid Photography

Candid photography is the key element in photojournalism and documentary work. One should be extremely alert and quick while doing candid shots in a could or street. Chances come and go in seconds; blink and you miss them. So you have to learn to concentrate on your subject completely: anticipating the light moment, watching and waiting for an illuminating expression and then acting decisively when every thing is ok.
You must be a master of your gear and learn it thoroughly and ingeniously. Shoot a lot and make taking pictures a second nature. Digital era has made it more easy as there is no running cost for shooting except shutter count. When ever you see an interested subject in a crowd or festival ,you must be apt enough to raise the camera, focus and shoot in a second or two so no one knows what you are doing. Keep the following points in mind: 

 * Keep the camera at auto-focus mode.
 * Program or P mode is better but aperture priority is best.
 * Aperture priority helps to control the depth of field and most of the time we need shallow depth of field to make the subject pop up out of back ground. So keep the lens aperture wide open, mostly at f/4. 

 * While focusing with auto focus, keep the focus area in the center of your subject. Also learn to estimate the distance, so that in tricky candid situations you can pre- focus the lens on the subject of your choice, to make the process of picture taking more quick and fast.
 * Avoid wearing bright colored, attention seeking cloths and learn the art to keep yourself invisible in the crowd, and to blend in the surrounding.  
 * keep your camera bag with some friend and only shoot with one lens and camera so don,t look a professional or a journalist. People mostly scared of journalist 's cameras.