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Seek an alternative view

It is very much the fashion these days to create a reportage-style mood in social photography. This involves trying to capture in your pictures the flavour and atmosphere of an event such as a wedding with the vitality of a real-life situation, rather than relying on stilted formal poses in which the people you are photographing are self-consciously aware of the camera.

Finding unusual views and shooting from alternative angles is a good way to create the feeling in a picture that we are observing the action, rather than everything having stopped for the benefit of the camera.

SHOOTING FROM BEHIND

You can achieve interesting compositions by shooting people from behind. This image works on a number of levels. Although the three main subjects in the foreground are depersonalized, their distinctive outfits provide interest from an unusual perspective. There is a clear compositional balance and geometry that heightens the aesthetics of the image, with the foreground dominated by the figures and the ceiling beams providing a strong frame.

Canon EOS 10D, 16–35mm at 16mm, 1/125 sec at f/2.8, ISO 400.