I just shot an event. With a single camera, and a 24-70 lens only. Bouncing my flash, of course, as in this image of incredibly-beautiful-as-well-as-incredibly-intelligent Tatiana:

If you have a camera and a flash, you will have plenty of opportunity this season to do this kind of shooting as well and to get it right. Christmas, Hannukah, New Years’ Day: whatever your favourite celebration is: make great pictures.

I’ll get you started. My settings were:

1. Camera in manual exposure mode; flash on TTL.
2. The Willems 400-40-4 rule: but modified to use 800 ISO instead of 400, at the usual 1/40th second at f/4.
3. White Balance on Flash, with slight adjustment in post every time I bounced off a brown ceiling instead of a white wall. (Brown is just dark yellow, so move the White Balance slider to “Blue” (cold) when adjusting these.)
4. Flash aimed behind me, straight or at an angle.

To keep in mind, a few notes:

1. Focus carefully, and yes, in the dark that is difficult and slow. Life’s tough.
2. Move people to where there is a nice background and you can bounce off a white wall.
3. In darker rooms, or where the ceiling and wall are higher or less reflective, go to 800 ISO – or higher when you need to! Better to do it in the camera than to underexpose and push in post.
4. Use the Rule of Thirds.
5. Think about your light direction. In every shot.
6. Change flash batteries before they run out, not after they do.
7. 35mm is a great focal length for people shots (24mm if you are using a crop camera).

More about all this later this month. I took around 300 pictures – fewer than usual because I was a little more selective. We evolve as photographers, and I go up and down in regard to the number of images I make. I like to get them right, rather than fire away randomly.

A couple more samples. Couples in posed shots are great:

Movers and shakers, celebrities, politicians like Mike Harris are used to being photographed:

You can ask people to do things (like “Go on – kiss your wife!”):

Shooting events is fun; people will listen to your suggestions and do what you ask; and if your  technique is good, your clients (or family!) will love your shots. Go have some fun this December!