Receptions and Evening Events

These events probably have the most variations as they tend to be catered to the audiences. They can be hosted anywhere. On-site at a hall or Off-site at a bar/restaurant or yacht. Stick to primes if you can as these also tend to be in low light settings. Use flash if needed but try not overpower the ambient light.

Shots to get can vary a lot but in general, you want to capture people having fun and all the activities and entertainment that are available to them. There will usually be signage and branding for these events all over the venue. Try to incorporate those in the shots to get a better context of the events. Attendees will usually dress up for these receptions, so definitely get a lot of group, posed shots.

Additional Tips:

1. Get to the venue early to get some detail shots of an empty venue.
2. Avoid too many out of context shots. For example, if there is a band, it is okay to shoot close ups of the singer, but make sure to include more shots where the attendees or conference signage are in frame.
3. Avoid chewing and eating shots.
4. Use flash as a supplement. Using flash can definitely help at these events but make sure that you don't kill the ambient light. Get your ambient exposure good first and then add flash. You can see below that the background exposure remains pretty much the same but with the flash, we can see the subject more clearly.