Candid Portrait Ideas
Candid portraits are among the best photos as people are at their most natural. We’ll be playing with different styles of portraits over time as there’s a lot of ways to do them.
Take the Candid Portrait Challenge at http://takeaphotochallenge.com/2018-03-11-candid-portrait-challenge/
Telling people to say “Cheese” almost always ends up creating a fake smile. You can do a slightly more natural smile by telling people to say “Money”. Not only do they get a kick out of saying the word, word money pushes the lips together for the “M” and then apart for the “ey” at the rest of the word. However, that’s not the photo that we’re looking for in this challenge.
What we’re looking for is the completely candid, unposed photo. Don’t worry, we’ll come back for the posed portrait at some point in the near future.
My technique is pretty simple. I watch the conversation with the camera out taking random photos of various things around me so that the people get used to the idea of my camera coming up and then I start snapping photos of the people in the conversation. The best moment is right after someone tells a joke and people are laughing. It’s not the laugh that I try to catch but the seconds right after where the laugh comes back into a natural smile.
This is a fun way to catch candid portraits.
We are looking for a single person in the photo with head and shoulders at most. The person doesn’t have to be smiling but that’s a lot of fun to capture.