OMG Family Photos

[Guppy]

so i went to my wife's family reunion this last weekend, and got designated the "official un-official photographer" because i had my D40 out taking pictures of my kid. So i thought what the hell I'll try my hand at it.... It turned out to be a lot harder then i thought it would be, first i am not so great with large groups of people i do not know, i tend to like to sit in the back ground so this was way out of my comfort zone. I got some decent shots out of the day, but it was very difficult and demanding.

Any one got some good tips on doing group shots like that, and how to get the great candid shots?

[Saralonde]

There are some good posts on the DPS blog to get you started:

How to Take Great Group Photos

Portrait Photography

[kalendae]

im also terrible at this. and one thing that always afflicts me is I will tend to gravitate towards photographing the people i am more comfortable with or "are prettier" haha. and then when its time to send over the photos its 'oh crap' time as you realize more than a few people are gonna be rather unhappy that u took 100 photos of couple A's kid, but like 2 of theirs!

Once we went to a park with friends and about 70% of the photos were of the cuter younger sister since she liked to get pictures taken, and there was only like 1 or 2 shots of the older sister and she was generally only in a group shot. as you can imagine its pretty embarrassing. i think it has to do with my natural lack of social skills.

[kirbinster]

Well I think the trick is a long lens. I went to our local lake picnic and took about 300 candid shots of kids using my 70-300vr lens. No one had a clue they were having their pictures taken.