Candid portraits.

I'm going to go ahead and say that today is the first time I've ever put real effort toward good candid photography.

I've been thinking a lot about my upcoming documentary assignment, and in order to do it proper I need to get some grade A candids of my subjects. I had a perfect opportunity for practice today! Lovely warm weather and my beautiful friend Olivia.

Photographing her is something I've wanted to do for a long time. She has fantastic eyes and amazing hair. She lives far away though and we have very conflicting schedules, obviously making it difficult to schedule some sort of photo session.

Today just so happened to be her boyfriend's birthday and she threw a party for him. So, while we waited for him to get home from work, she, another friend of ours and myself waited around outside and enjoyed the sunshine. She planted some tulips that she's quite proud of, which made for a very easy reason to start snapping pictures and acclimate us all to having my camera out. I quickly turned my attention to her though.

She was an amazing candid model. I took tons of shots, most weren't great, but the ones that were are just fantastic I think. She was conversing with our friend and I sat waiting for her to pause (talking photos are almost never good!). It was tiring work, snap snap snapping away while she spoke, knowing I was getting undesirable shots.

The good shots were a total payoff though. They're so natural and comfortable, such real moments were captured. It feels good to look at them and know they weren't staged. All in all, my first real candid portrait session was a complete success and I feel better about my upcoming assignment!

-MJ