Timing: Now let’s talk about timing. Timing can simply make the difference between an average shot and a perfect shot. In a club or party atmosphere, things are always moving (as compared to landscape photography). Great timing will capture the energy, emotion or feeling at that moment. As long as you’re pulling the rest of your elements together, timing is a feature that will truly put the cherry on top (show ie.). It is when you capture the right shot at the exact perfect moment, often being a split second itself. Effective timing is great in capturing emotion. So how do you perfect your timing? Through experience and practice. It will take years to hone this intuitional skill. Often you should catch yourself and know that you missed a great shot by a second or two. This kind of self-critique is important because it helps you to be sharper and more right-on the next time around.

Try to feel out the peak emotional level of feedback from the people and capture emotion at its height.

Composition: take a look back at our 50 examples (stay tuned for availability) and take your time and browse through them again. Look at what works. The best way is perhaps to show you. As you look through these shots, you want to start thinking as a producer yourself; someone who proactively captures and immortalizes the emotion of event; someone who brings something new into the world. You want to make photographs “interesting”. So many crowd shots are just plain boring and can look the same anywhere. Use our light capture technique and you can start making it a little more interesting. Try this without a flash too on a 2 second shutter speed (hold the camera as still as possible or with a tripod).

It is so important to develop your eye. Everywhere you go you can be thinking “that would be a great shot, I wish I had my camera”! I do this ALL the time. I will actually have my mind take a “shot” of everything at that moment when I know everything is lined up just right. This helps me to develop my eye even though I won’t recall that particular shot I am developing the sense of an aesthetic state of mind that will seek out composition and beauty everywhere I go and I will KNOW when I have a great shot or not. You want to at least get to this level where you know what would be great shots and you have your camera there to capture.

Or if I have my camera with I’ll just shoot away knowing that I’m using digital and can dump it onto my computer and clear out the memory chip. I took 700 digital shots on the Bahamas/Miami/North Carolina trip that I went on in March ‘03. I took 300 pictures of Paulo’s kids! Imagine how guilty you’d feel if it was film! But because it was digital, yeah; just go crazy with it because it will help develop your eye. Always keep looking. The greatest photographers know that there is always more beauty to capture in the world and that beauty can be in the eye of the beholder.

Once you develop this aesthetic sense for composition on a habitual level, you won’t be able to stop producing, you’ll truly have the “photographer’s bug”. You’ll be in situations where you’ll be kicking yourself and just itching for your camera because of the opportunities you missed. Standing up in my brother’s wedding I was just itching and twirking at all the photo ops I was missing but I had my camera nearby to capture the rest of the even and reception. This is healthy psychopaethia.

So, if you are a beginner that is how you want to be thinking if you are at all serious about photography for your own personal or professional benefit. Also don’t expect people to pay you until you really are good. You need to give in order to receive. In order to give or offer the quality that people will pay for, you’re going to have to devote some time and effort into it. There’s no other way around it. But with consistent commitment you’ll be fine.

This Manual isn’t a shortcut for experience itself, it is a guideline to help you start working everything in your favor as you start working it.

Top photographers and cinematographers are in demand everywhere and people will pay for their services because they have developed their state of mind through experience in all three of these elements. They take that state of mind with them everywhere they go and can pick up any camera and produce beautiful results. Start with great equipment is going to get you going in the right direction but doesn’t mean perfect photographs, but if you get things going and follow some solid advice, you’ll get there.

Photography is an adventure with every photo-opportunity a new chance to capture and represent human emotion or life as it is or as it should be. After a while you’ll be proud to be a photographer (producer) and won’t even be ashamed of being in public with cameras because you’ll always have hard proof of any event and at best; they’ll just have memories. You have the tools to truly represent any situation you come across. It’s a beautiful thing.

To check out Orion's extensive work as a club photographer visit ClubCast.Tv

Or check out the gallery for his Club Portfolio (included in the 2,000+ Images CD when you order the Photoshop Designer Package)

- Orion Williams copyright 2004