it could be argued that the best place to start as a photographer is with editorial work. well maybe street photography would be a better jumping off point, but what i am talking about is paid photography work. editorial is work that comes with a purpose, and that purpose is usually assigned and clearly defined in advanced. having a purpose takes away some of the hesitation that can be a part of initial forays into photographing people in public. it establishes the parameters, and when you’re starting out in photography, parameters are just the training wheels you need!
when shooting editorial work, chances are you’re not going to be in full manual mode. aperture priority and time value (shutter speed) priority are going to be your friends. the truth is, a lot of times during editorial shooting, the lighting and subject speed is constantly in a state of flux, making it nearly impossible to keep up if you’re constantly tweaking your settings. the best thing you can do is set your iso as low as the environment allows, and then let your camera decide what shutter speed or aperture is required to get the shot. if you’re in aperture priority with a locked-in iso, your camera might decide that you need a long exposure to get the shot, and that might not be an option for you. if that is the case, change your exposure compensation by a stop or two so that the camera adjusts the shutter speed to be faster by one or two stops (or a third of a stop, two-thirds, etc.) as needed.
the key to editorial is to be flexible, responsive to the environment around you. you can’t be thinking about what your camera is doing the whole time you’re out shooting editorial or you will miss the moment and you’ll miss all the best shots.
another thing to keep in mind as an editorial photographer is that your body is very much a part of the process. you need to assertively put your body in the right place to get the shot. you want to be as sensitive as you can be not to interrupt the environment that you’re documenting, but you also can’t afford to be timid because you’ll miss the shot. or maybe you will get it but from an amateurish angle that makes it clear you weren’t where you needed to be. that can almost be worse.
finally, editorial photography is also about being patient. no one wants a photo of what happened a split second before a baseball player swings his bat to hit a series-winning grand slam. or the moment that a groom is reaching in his back pocket to grab a ring to propose to his girlfriend in the bleachers. you’ve got to be patient with your trigger finger and attune yourself to the rhythm of the moment so that your shutter snaps at the exact millisecond that you need it to snap in order to cleanly and accurately capture the bat hitting the ball, the follow through and the eyes of the batter as he watches the ball soar toward the fence, and the rest of the team losing their minds, pouring onto the field when they realize what just happened. you want to capture the moment the girlfriend covers her mouth, arches her eyebrows and widens her eyes in surprise as the ring box is opened, the hopeful and dopey grin on the face of the boyfriend as he realizes she’s going to say yes, and the eruption of joy from the family and friends around them who knew this moment was coming when she actually does say yes.
in essence, editorial work forces you to learn the basics of your camera’s abilities on the fast track well enough to ignore them.