It took many many years from the time I started photographing, before I became good at candid photography. Two years ago - in fact it was almost two years before the very day that I captured this fun loving foursome, that my candid photography took a permanent turn for the better, all in one magical day. On that day I purposefully left any equipment home that was not suitable for capturing candid shots of people. That made it harder for me to give up after a few unsuccessful hours and go looking for landscape or nature shots to capture instead. And many hours later as I took the trip back home I was delighted that I had more great candid images sitting inside my camera than I managed to capture in my entire life.
At first I thought I had finally managed to combine my compositional and lighting skills with my candid photography attempts. But as time passed and the weeks and months dropped new images into this gallery, I started to realize that it was my success at channeling that unseen emotional current, that always separated the perfectly composed well lit shot that made it to this gallery, from the equally well composed and lighted identical shot that didn't capture that emotional current as well. Those shots remained on my hard drive instead.
People may not identify with someone you capture on film who looks interesting or unusual. (How can you define with certainty what a wide variety of people you don't know, find interesting in other people)? But most of us can identify with someone thrilling to their favorite team making a great play. Or a young child playing with their puppy. Or that frustrated commuter starring at their watch as the train track in front of them remains aggravatingly empty. If you look at the magnificent photo's of the worlds great photographers I'll bet you'll be hard pressed to find one that doesn't strike an emotional cord with you. Until I instinctively started to incorporate that lesson into my candid photography my images did not improve. Now when I go out looking for candids my camera seeks out that emotional current like a bloodhound.
