Taking Meaningful Candid Shots

When people refer to candid photography as a thing, they tend to see it as a genre, but this is not exactly how candid works. Candid (in photography) must be seen as a feature, because it really refers to a way of approaching subjects. It’s not a genre. Documentary photography, photojournalism and street photography are the genres that perhaps benefit the most from candid approaches.

Candid images are images of people in which the subjects are or appear to be unaware that they are being photographed. This typically happens in two circumstances. The first is that people may be so used to the photographer being around that they start acting naturally. That’s the moment when the photographer needs to starting shooting (if capturing things naturally is one of the photographer’s goals). The other way to achieve a candid look is by being very inconspicuous at the moment the photograph is taken.

Taking candid images is easy if you just shoot randomly at crowds on the street, for example. The trick is to capture meaningful candid shots beyond snapshots of oblivious pedestrians. Today we’re going to talk a bit about how you can develop a certain mindset that will help you capture meaningful candid shots, and also some tricks that will benefit your approach.

Mind the Subjects (Approaching Strangers)