I'm starting to think I might be much more valuable as an event photographer than a portrait photographer. Even if my goal is "get good portraits of people."

I just had a portrait session with someone today. I had trouble getting them to "act natural," and various poses made them say "this pose makes me feel/look like I'm just posing for a photographer." They preferred photos that looked plausibly candid.

For the average person -- especially the average guy -- I get it.

At events, I can get candids of so many different people. It's time-efficient. And people are dressed nice by default. And sometimes the environment is especially nice. Usually the lighting isn't ideal, but sometimes it's interesting. (e.g. Colorful dance lighting.)

I've been feeling kind of awkward in my portrait sessions. It's kind of hard to make a bunch of good decisions about posing/staging on the spot -- it all depends on the person, their outfit, whether they're masculine/feminine, the cloud cover, etc. Lots of thinking on the spot. And generally I'm not working with someone who has any interest in modeling, so... they feel a bit awkward and nervous themselves, which isn't good for photos.