Performance Photography

Rock, Drama, Jazz, Soul, Poetry readings, Church music, Orchestra, Gospel, or Country among others can be a real pleasure to a photographer. You would require lots of preparation: your seating location and the necessary permissions.

In most entertainment facilities (even where you have to have table and chair hire) flashes are not allowed you will have to use very slow shutter speed and a wide aperture as of course the light is not going to be great. A telephoto will be very practical and a steady support for your camera, be it a monopod or a tripod. Shoot at the widest aperture (f 2.8) and keep the shutter on 1/125.

Address appropriately and accordingly, not only for your success but also for the benefit of other patrons and the performers.

Light Graffiti,

You will need a partner for this experiment, which by the way, is a lot of fun. Your knowledge of how to capture long exposures is significant for the results of this type of photography.

Your partner will stand in front of you with a LED flash light and the space has to be pitch dark. He will begin to draw in the air and because you will shoot very quickly, the camera won’t take your partner, rather just the light that stays behind. Remember that longer shutter speed is the secret!

Enjoy it.

Do you have what it takes?

Taking pictures for a living demands serious thought. You could have a Camera Obscura or a Nikon DSLRs, the best environment and the most gracious of subjects, but if you don’t know what you are doing….failure is at bay.

Let’s start by making a list of the personal inventory you should bring with you –and for starts, it does not include a camera.

1-Creativity

Not everybody is gifted at everything. A great author with all the vocabulary and grammatical knowledge will add her imagination to create a fictional story that sells by the millions. The same novelist may need a designer to arrange and decorate her office. A renowned chef could delight our eyes and make us dribble at the presentation of his culinary creations but may need the help of a writer to describe the menu.

Then, do you have creativity? There are many courses offered to improve what you already have and add to it. You will acquire ways to use your lateral thinking abilities as well as innovate on established rules.

2-Knowledge

Get yourself familiar with proved techniques and rules of good photography. A good start is a community centre or a technical college; even correspondence courses may be a good starting point.

Do not try to invent the computer…it was already created and it is not broken. In other words stick to the already proven.

3-Investing capital

Check that old camera that sits in your garage and donate it to a charity organization, they always find great uses for this kind of donations. Buy an easy to operate camera, once you are famous the manufacturers will throw at you many of their new products just for you to endorse them.

Nowadays everything is edited digitally and if your computer does not have a good memory, donated also together with the printer. You need a good RAM and lots of storage; a printer for pictures ONLY, and the best quality paper.

Stationary will talk very loud about your creativity and capabilities, do not try to save on those expenditures.

Professional apparel and basic etiquette will enhance a first impression when you market your services.