My favorite events to photographs are birthday parties. They are low stress and people are relaxed and having a good time.
In a birthday party, as photographer, there are three things to keep in mind.
- to go around taking candid photos of the people having fun
- Take one group photo
- take many photos of the cake cutting, or the Happy Birthday singing.
If you do those three things well, you birthday party photography can be considered a success.
One challenging thing in a birthday party, as a photographer, is the lighting. The lights are generally dimmed, so you have to play a lot with the ISO or the flash. But once you figure that out, then you can keep the settings for the rest of the night.
Another challenge is when we have to photograph people with different skin color, to be more precise, when one partner is white and the other is black.
When we as humans see a couple with different skin color, our eyes adapt in micro seconds from one person to the other. It’s like if there is an internal ISO in our brain that can quickly adjust from one face to the other and we are not aware that this is going on. But when it comes to photography, there is no scape. One of the two person will not be optimal. If the camera focus on the darker skin person, the lighter one will be blown out and there will be some some lost in face definition. Conversely, if you focus on the lighter skin, the darker face will be so dark that we will also lose some definition. The only solution that I know is seek and ISO that’s in between the two skin colors, that way neither face will be perfect, but they will be acceptable. What I try to do, is to take photos of the two persons separately.
If you ever need a photographer in Montreal to take photos of your birthday party, count with the team from Alain Photography. We are there to make your special moment unforgettable.
This birthday party in particular was very fun because the birthday person hired the dance school Dance Conmigo to teach them a choreography to animate the party. Of course, everyone was dancing, laughing, and having a great time.
