Party Photography Tips
Conducting party photography is always fun and exciting. You get to capture the best moments at the event and people generally love getting their pictures taken, so you can also expect to enjoy the times in which you bring the best out of the guests.
As with every form of event photography, taking party photos means you have to be good at improvising - not only in the way that you decide which moments are worth capturing, but also how you adapt to certain changes in lighting. These party photography tips will help you familiarize yourself with how you can use certain elements to your advantage.
What to Shoot When Taking Party Photos
Before we get to the mechanical aspect of this niche, let's first talk about what you should be looking for when taking party photos. A good rule of thumb is to always arrive early, not only so you can get a feel for the venue (to see what kind of lighting you'll be working with), but to also get a few good shots of the food and decorations.
Party photographers should focus on three main factors: Emotion, different perspectives and group pictures. These usually go hand in hand, but all of your shots should have at least one of these elements.
Emotion is easy to find - everyone is usually happy at a party. Try capturing spontaneous or unique occurrences of emotion instead of always getting the typical smiles.
Always experiment with different perspectives. An album with great party photos will show people from various angles in all kinds of different situations.
While it's easy to take photos of people in groups, it's very challenging trying to get a shot of the entire party in one frame. This usually has to be done either at the beginning of the party or at the end. Try to get at least one photo of the whole group before the night is over.
Party Photography Tips - Using the Right Lens and Adjusting to Lighting
More often than not, you're going to be using wide angle lenses when shooting at a party. A standard lens is still an option, but a wide angle lens will offer better substance for your composition by making the significant parts of your shot bigger and more significant.
Be aware, however, that a wide angle lens can sometimes distort a person's face if you get too close. You will probably want to switch to a standard lens when taking portraits.
Indoor parties normally aren't very dark, so you have decent wiggle room when it comes to dealing with lighting. Your aperture value will usually depend on what type of Depth of Field you are aiming for - use a larger F-stop to keep everything in focus and a smaller one to emphasize particular objects.
Adhere to the traditional rule of keeping your shutter speed relative to your lens size (for example: a 50mm lens should be coupled with a 1/50 shutter speed). Your ISO will depend on the architecture of the building - you might have crank it up to around 400 if the walls are far apart and the ceilings are high. Generally, you can just experiment with your ISO until you find a setting that fits best. If you're going to use flash, then having a built-in catch light reflector will help out quite a bit.
A full frame SLR camera can be very beneficial if you are using a high ISO - your photos will appear a lot cleaner and will have much less noise. However, full frame sensors are far more expensive than small frame sensors, so your budget also plays a part in this matter.
While these party photography tips do cover some of the fundamentals of dealing with lighting, it's more important that you have a refined plan for what kind of shots you want to take. Having extensive knowledge on how to shoot [indoors] and [outdoors] is a separate learning curve. When you are focused on a particular niche, it's critical that you gain experience with the actual composition.
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