Photographing at a funfair

Sunday 8 May 2022, 23:23 by Nando Harmsen | 6,472 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

From spring onwards, you can find them in villages and towns again. The funfair. It always offers great photo opportunities, especially in the evening when the lights are on. I received a question about photographing at a funfair.

How do you bring order to the chaos? How do you stop people from being too dark in the photo? How do you prevent motion blur? What are the best settings for your camera? In this article, I will answer these questions, while also providing inspiration.

Photographing at a funfair can produce great results.

Settings

There is no single setting that is suitable for every type of photography at a funfair. I can only give you a few guidelines that can serve as a basis for choosing the right setting at the right moment.

In fact, you can practise two types of photography. One is photographing moments, with people among and on the rides. The other is capturing the movement of the rides. You need different settings for each.

Because of all the light, the person you are photographing may become a little dark. If necessary, overexpose by one stop.
The first may be the most difficult. Photographing people requires a reasonably fast shutter speed. This means you need to use high ISO values to achieve it. A shallow depth of field helps to separate your subject from the background. This makes your photo less cluttered.

Expose for your subject, not the background. The background may then become overexposed, but it prevents the person you are photographing from being too dark. You can use fill flash if necessary, but this does attract a lot of attention.

Movement is part of the funfair. Use it. This photo was taken with a slower shutter speed and panning.
For movement, you can put the camera on a tripod. By choosing a small aperture together with a low ISO value, you can get slower shutter speeds. This allows you to capture the movement of the rides beautifully.

Calm in your photo

A funfair can be a chaotic environment. You can create calm in your photos by not including everything in the frame. Concentrate on details, on people, on the things they are doing. In other words, choose a clear subject.

Look for a subject. Don't put too much in the photo. It is better to make a series of photos that shows everything than to try to capture everything in one photo.
You can also use silhouettes against moving rides. You can use longer focal lengths to highlight things. Use a shallow depth of field to blur the background.

Capturing movement

A funfair is always moving. Rides do not stand still. With a slower shutter speed, it is possible to capture that movement. You do not even need to choose very slow shutter speeds. Sometimes 1 second is enough.

Show the movement. But always include a fixed point. People watching, for example.
That movement is what makes the photo dynamic. Add a human element, a point of calm amid all the movement. A simple silhouette of spectators by a ride may be enough.

Fill flash

With a flash, it is possible to expose a person perfectly. This is not really suitable for an unobtrusive candid photo, but it does work for a portrait session.

Expose for the background lighting and use the flash to light your model. You can use slow shutter speeds to keep the background moving. Or choose a wide aperture to make the lights in the background appear as bokeh balls.

Portrait photography at the funfair. The exposure is for the background, and the flash is for your model.

Use your creativity

There is even more you can do at a funfair in the dark. For example, you can use panning and intentional camera movement (ICM) techniques. By moving your camera yourself with a slow shutter speed, you can achieve unusual effects.

Intentional Camera Movement emphasises the dynamism of the funfair. Give it a try.
If your camera supports double exposures, you can make perfect use of them. Multiple exposures, with different settings for each shot, give you an endless number of possibilities.

Two different photos layered over each other, made in the camera. You can also do this in Photoshop, but that requires good planning when taking the photos.

Do you have any ideas too?

These are, of course, just a few ideas for photographing at a funfair. Do try out new things, or practise with a special technique. Spend an evening trying things out and look at the results afterwards.

Go a second time to do things differently based on your first results, or to put the ideas you had while looking at them into practice.

Candid photography is quite possible, but do not use a flash. It is immediately noticeable. Choose a high ISO to get sufficiently fast shutter speeds.
Maybe you have ideas or tips for funfair photography too? Let us know in a comment below this post. I wish you success with your funfair photography.

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