Beneath it all, nightclub photography is about people. People having a good time are what usually make a nightclub photo great, and no matter where you are photographing, people are people and there are some general principles of photography to try and remember and apply when possible:

1. Shooting low gives a person strength and power; shooting “down” on a person gives a sense of vulnerability or weakness.
2. Try not to photograph up someone’s nostrils (very unattractive).
3. Move your position (or the person) so that they are not square to the camera – no “passport shots” please. Angles and bends give dynamics, interest and energy.
4. Work the light. No need to try for the classic portrait, seek out that dynamic, dramatic light to help accentuate the character, mood, and presence of your subject.
5. Be conscious of your background: Is it important in your image? Or do you want to open up your aperture and soften it?
6. Some basic compositional elements about photographing people do come into play as a refresher here for nightclub photography:

• Cropping off part of a leg or arm is always more successful if done NOT too close to a joint, as it can appear as a true amputation. Try not to leave your subjects “footless” by camera cropping your image and leaving off part or the entire foot.

• Legs, arms, etc., are all more attractive if they have a bend in them; if there is a joint, bend it – a straight arm is stiff and awkward.

• Watch for merges (from the background); try to keep some kind of  light from growing out of someone’s head.

• Separation of limbs; especially in silhouettes. Let some light come through between an arm and the rest of the body. Try not to have both legs merged into one large body part.

Just as people partying bring life to a nightclub, people will bring life and energy into your nightclub photos. Make sure to use angles, proper posing, and framing to get the best people photos you can.

I’m going to start a regularly scheduled blog post titled the “How to” Post Series. Basically, these blog posts will focus on a particular aspect of nightclub photography and how to execute or implement the particular topic. This post is about getting press credentials or camera clearance to shoot at nightclubs. If you are new to nightclub photography, it can be very difficult to get into bigger, better known events. Sometimes there are only a limited number of press passes to these events, and they are going to be given to photographers that work for a magazine or newspaper. If you’re a freelancer, you are going to need some really good credentials, a professional looking website, and an excellent portfolio of past work.

The key to “getting in” is to act as professional as humanly possible, and contact the right person. For particular nightclub parties or events, the first person you should try and contact is the promoter of the party. Find out if they would be interested in an additional photographer. It is best to start with smaller, less popular event promoters when you’re just getting started. For general nightclub photography shooting, contact the venue’s marketing director, manager, or owner. Offer to give them copies of the photos at no charge in exchange for “camera clearance”.

Once you’ve gained more experience, built up a strong portfolio of work, and become more of a familiar phase to regulars at clubs, you can start charging a fee for your services, and start shopping yourself out to local nightclubs, bars, newspapers, and magazines. If you can land a job shooting for an event promoter, party website, or legit publication, you’ll have an editor that will take care of all press credentials for you. Working for a nightclub event promoter, magazine, or newspaper is the best way to get into any and all events.

A common question I encounter is what kind of lens should a person use when shooting in a nightclub. A good nightclub photography lens is very important. The different situations you get into and different kinds of photos you want to take should ultimately dictate what kind of lens to use. Generally, however, I think the right nightclub photography lens ought to be a high quality, fast, wide angle zoom lens.  As I mentioned, the lens you will want to use will vary, but for your average nightly shoot, remember these three qualities:

1. High Quality: Camera lenses are a great investment, and you really get what you pay for. Higher quality lenses (also more expensive) offer the sharpest images, the best color rendering, superior optical performance, and are typically built with a solid construction to withstand constant use and harsh conditions, which is especially important in a nightclub environment.
2. Fast Lens (i.e. f/2.8 or faster): A “fast” lens allows you to take photos in low light situations even without a flash. Clearly, a nightclub photography lens has to be capable of handling dim lighting. A “fast” lens has a wide aperture, which allows more light to enter through the lens. Because of this, you’ll be able to achieve clearer pictures when there is less light and you can also increase your shutter speed to capture motion. Furthermore, a wider aperture helps create blurred backgrounds in your photos while your subject is sharp.
3. Wide Angle Zoom: A wide angle zooms lens has a general focal length of 20mm to 35mm. Wide angle lenses are great for nightclubs because they allow you to take great “crowd” shots while still being able to get in close enough to take group and solo shots. You definitely can’t zoom in as much as a telephoto lens if you’re far away from a subject, but if you want to get up close and personal, you can use your two feet and get closer! Likewise, wide angle zoom lenses are usually lighter and smaller than normal zoom lenses. If you’re shooting in a club, then you definitely don’t want your nightclub photography lens to slow you down.

As a Canon shooter, I personally use the EF 16-35mm II f/2.8L lens most of the time, and rotate with teh EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens (when I need that extra zoom). While it is important to choose good quality camera lens, if you’re a beginner, focus more on good composition. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can only take a great picture with an expensive top-of-the-line lens. A badly composed picture won’t look great with any kind of lens!

I don’t mean to discount the importance of a good quality lens. In fact, if you are serious about nightclub photography, you will need a good nightclub photography lens. But, a good rule is to only add to your lens collection only when you have a specific need for a particular digital camera lens. Do your research and your homework first, think about the three points above, and find the lens that suits both you and your camera.

We have been receiving a lot of newsletter sign ups the past few weeks, and it’s great to know that there are a bunch of nightclub photographers out there. Awesome! We want to make sure we give you guys the best that we can, and the first step is to make sure you get our monthly nightclub photography tips. They are absolutely free, and we promise not to bombard your inbox with useless email! That’s not how we operate at all.

Our site isn’t finished yet but will be by the second week of July. In the meantime, feel free to sign up for our monthly newsletter. We are already sending out free nightclub photography tips. Besides what we email you, check our blog also. We’ll be sharing a lot of valuable information on our blog, and feel free to comment and ask questions!

Happy shooting!

I recent had a shoot at Red Circle Lounge in San Diego. When I took a few test photos, there always seemed to be a shade of red dominating the pictures. I guess that’s why they call the place Red Circle! I tried different white balance settings on my camera, but regardless if I used the “Flash” white balance setting or “Auto” white balance, I would not get consistent white balance (i.e. some photos still had the dominating red light). For some photos, the color effect was nice but I definitely didn’t want all my photos turning out that way.

This leads me to what I want to discuss in this blog post. Should you shoot in RAW or JPEG in a nightclub? It’s debatable. There are photographers who like to shoot in JPEG because they process faster and because a memory card can hold a lot more photos taken in JPEG. However, during post processing, there is not as much flexibility. For example, when taking photos in JPEG, it’s important to really nail your white balance at the beginning of your shoot. You will not be able to adjust the white balance as easily and with more control than in RAW during post processing.

With RAW you do not need to worry about getting an exact white balance because you can fully adjust white balance settings in Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture, or any other photo editing software. Now you might be able to nail your white balance down for a particular club shooting in JPEG and you don’t need to worry about post processing to get it right. If this is the case, then JPEG is fine to shoot in especially if you plan on taking hundreds and hundreds of photos in one shoot. As I mentioned above, your camera will be able to process JPEGs faster and can hold more photos in JPEG. (The average 21.1 megapixel JPEG is 8mb while a 21.1 megapixel photo in RAW is about 21mb.)

RAW is still king in my opinion though. RAW format gives you the most bits of data to work with during post processing and delivers the highest quality possible. When you are out shooting, any photographer will tell you that you never know when a great photo opportunity will come your way, or that they can be pleasantly surprised with how certain photos turn out. When this happens, you want to know that you can take, or took, your photos at the highest quality possible. You don’t want to regret it by having your camera on JPEG.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for JPEG; but, with my camera, it’s always set to RAW.