Under the umbrella

Taking candid shots of people can often result in better photographs than taking posed shots.  For posed photographs it is often clear in the final image that the subject was holding a pose, and the effect can look unnatural and awkward.  The problem with candid photography though is that it is hard to take a photograph of someone with them facing the camera but not seeing it.

One trick I use is to keep the camera at waist level with it hanging around my neck on its neck strap, and take a shot without even looking at the camera.  It’s very hit or miss of course – there are so many variables that I am leaving to chance that more often than not the shot won’t work – it’ll be out of focus, poorly composed, badly timed, or under or over exposed.

Sometimes, though, it does work.

I took this photograph of my sister Úna at our cousin Paul’s wedding last summer.  That being an Irish summer, you can understand why the umbrellas are up.  We had come out of the cathedral in Killarney where Paul and Tara had just married, and were taking shelter under the umbrellas while the happy couple posed for some photographs.

Úna photographs well, and is usually happy to have her photograph taken – her work as a professional musician sees her spend much of her time on stage or on screen – but I wanted to get a natural shot of her, which required taking a photo discreetly.  I had the camera strap around my neck and the lens cap was off.  I did a rough estimation of the distance between us and set the focus to around about that distance using the dial on the lens – I was still going to auto-focus, but this pre-setting was just to give the camera a head start.  I was in aperture-priority mode, and put the focus point selector towards the top centre so the camera would both focus on and meter for Úna’s face.

I think at the moment I clicked the shutter a relative of ours must have come over to say hello from behind my left shoulder, with Úna smiling back, and conveniently distracted from the noise of the shutter.

I think the composition of the photograph is helped by the stripes on the umbrella, the expression is nice, the exposure was accurate, and the focus is on the subject’s face.  So on this occasion, the technique worked.

I haven’t asked Úna in advance if I can post this photo of her, and I’m sure she’ll tell me she hates it, so to make up for it tomorrow I’ll be helping her to promote an upcoming concert that she’s having – with a link to a photograph of mine of course – which should keep her happy.  I hope!