Top tips on capturing street festival photography

This summer hundreds of of people will descend upon cities attend summer festivals. For photographers, this provides an exciting opportunity to capture lively, dynamic images of the event and its attendees. Canon ambassador and acclaimed international photographer, Guia Besana, provides her top tips on how to capture summer events and festivals.

Do your research before

Before you set off, it’s so important to do your research and get to know what streets the festival will be on. If you don’t, you risk missing everything! A quick look on a search engine or on social media should tell you everything you need to know.

Keep in mind how the energy of the festival can change over time, and make a judgement on where you think you will best capture it all. Sometimes this means heading down to the festival location beforehand.

One of my favourite things to capture is backstage shots of those taking part. If you can, find out where this will be and head there. It’s often quieter around this time, allowing you to capture the excitement and buzz before the festival is in full swing.

Make sure you and your equipment are prepared to work quickly

Among the buzz of the festival, some of the most vibrant but minute details can be lost. To capture these, you need to be light and agile. Avoid bringing a tripod so you can be as quick as possible. Details can pass by at the blink of an eye, so you need to be able to move fast and react to the story in front of you.

As street festivals happen so fast it can be challenging to capture all the best bits in such a short space of time. To make this easier, I’d recommend using EF 50mm f/1.2L USM or EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens. In terms of cameras, for me, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV works perfectly. It’s versatile, quick and has a fast shutter speed.

Tell a story with video

To tell the story of the festival, I’d recommend experimenting between photography and videography. Take advantage of the festivals’ quickness to do something different. For example, there’s great sound to street festivals which photographs simply can’t capture. As more and more photographers are upskilling themselves to shoot video content, the skill to do this is only likely to get more desirable, so practice where you can.

Do something different

Long exposure works perfectly while shooting festivals. Don’t be put off by the timings of street festivals from day to night. With use of low light camera capabilities, you’ll still be able to capture stunning images of the festivities in the night time, such as the fireworks – on the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV this works particularly well when the image quality is at ISO 6400.

Create a colour profile ahead of time

Street festivals are quick and vibrant, presenting two key challenges. The first challenge is capturing all the energy and colours of the festival, and secondly, doing this in a very short space of time. To produce accurate and consistent images make sure you’ve created a colour profile ahead of time.

About Guia Besana

Guia is an acclaimed international photographer and Canon Ambassador who has captured stunning images of the events that have changed the world. Guia’s work’s been published in international blogs and magazines. As a self-taught photographer, Guia always embraces new challenges, preferring to capture her images on the EOS 5D mark IV with a EF 35 mm f/1.4L II USM lens.