When I was starting out in photography I liked to create vibrant and sharp images. I did not understand many things but tried to get a “stunning” shot. I was sometimes doing candid photography and sometimes portraits or completely staged photography. For a very long time, I disregarded documentary photography. Later I realised that a documentary photographer’s job is going beyond photography and their work is to capture something unique in life as it is. While capturing that, they try to capture the beauty of that thing or person that might soon cease to exist forever. Not always do they have time to set the right exposure or composition. The pictures can be distorted. The colours can be dirty. But these people are going out there and sometimes are working hard weeks or even years on one project.
Why is it a hard choice
The hardship of this choice starts from the realisation that most of the time you can’t make a perfect shot without preparation. But if you want to capture life and real events and emotions you can’t do it staged. Most portrait photographs are staged and often you can see how unnatural it is. I realised that a few years ago I also did photographs which look fake. Lately, I started liking photographs which have true emotions and resonate with me. It’s very hard to create documentary photos that resonate with people but they will always be full of real emotions.
What to choose: staged photography or candid photography
For me personally, it’s always hard to choose between staged or candid photography. I think the best genre would be the fusion of both.
If you choose staged photography
Staged photography often lacks sincerity. It’s a great deal that requires a lot of skills to make a staged photograph look natural. When I look at photos I took a year ago I notice that many portraits look unnatural. Nowadays I would rather allow everything to be less under control.
It is more important how people appear in your shots than how well the portrait is composed. Even if the picture is blurred – use it. If it’s the only shot where you can truly see the charisma of the person.
I always wanted to have power over every part of the frame to create that stylised version of the world and create a certain atmosphere. And I started doing more and more portrait photography. At the same time, I created that fake, nonexisting scene that could be beautiful and out of everyday life. While going deeper into this I noticed that only fine art photography can look like real life. Although, it is staged photography. I realised that fashion photography is also mostly about clothes and styles rather than pictures.
Nevertheless, you can almost create new worlds in your photo series by carefully choosing the settings, colours and outfits. In the example below I did the whole series on the grass but with a white background. It’s exciting how much you can achieve by choosing the angle and setting.
How to do a staged photoshoot:
- Find a concept for your photoshoot (I’m not talking about stock photography when someone makes a look like he is working)
- Do further research like choosing the scene, and colours and read about the style.
- If you think that your style is going to be unique then most probably you have not found similar pictures yet. So go to Pinterest and try to search for them.
- You can try to combine some features of this style with another one but try to keep colours consistent.
- When you are ready and found a model – do the first shoot
- Wait for a couple of days before editing the pictures to have a clearer approach to the photo editing process
- Edit the pictures also taking brakes and returning to them later
- Probably redo the photoshoot in a couple of weeks to get even better results.
If you choose candid photography
Here, the topic often matters more than the photos themselves. Of course, you can make them beautiful, but you could also become a documentary photographer without particular technical skills.
Candid photography can be as simple as going out and capturing life around you. The images might focus on a certain topic or just reflect how you see the world. Documentary-style photography might not always produce “masterpieces,” but it lets you capture life as it unfolds and teaches you to observe carefully. For someone starting out, I’d say documentary or candid photography is a great place to begin.
That said, candid photography doesn’t have to be completely unplanned. In my work, I often blend candid and staged techniques, especially when photographing clients. I aim for a cinematic feel, so the photos look like frames from a film. This means I rarely put people in static poses. Instead, I give prompts—asking them to walk somewhere, climb, interact with objects, or engage with their surroundings. The moments that follow are natural, but guided enough to create that story-driven cinematic look. In most cases, this approach sits somewhere between staged and candid.
By doing candid or semi-candid work, you capture real stories and enrich your visual library. The more you explore and experiment in these situations, the better you’ll get at both candid and fully staged photography. If you enjoy going out into the field, working closely with subjects, and really getting to know them, documentary-style photography is incredibly rewarding. You really get these real photographs and when you look at them you believe the story they tell.
You can find more on my approach here: Portfolio
How to create a documentary photography project (not staged)
- Find the topic. It can be a certain society of people at an event.
- Research the topic more. Read some books or articles about what you want to capture. That can help you to improve at photography too.
- Spend some significant time photographing this event or society. Better to take too many pictures rather than fewer. I made that mistake a few times. Sometimes people can spend weeks in one society photographing how this group of people lives
- Capture all aspects of the happening. Not only happy and beautiful moments.
- Choose very strictly and only the strongest photos. Edit all of the photographs in one particular style and publish them.
I personally continue to struggle with this choice but I guess I try to do a bit of both. The problem with staged photography is that you can see that it’s been staged and you don’t believe the feelings that are shown in these pictures. At the same time, there are very beautiful candid photographs that are captured at the moment of the happening. The choice between staged and candid photography is in creating a mood in an artificial setting or observing, experiencing and capturing real emotions. And the more I learn about photography and the world, the more I move towards the candid photography style.
I wish you to also define what you are fond of more. In both variants at a very high-level people create masterpieces which resonate with us, and inspire and move forward in our photography journeys.
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