Thanks to Instagram, WeChat, pollution and food, it seems anyone in the city can call themselves a photographer these days. But very few of these enthusiastic amateurs are fully armed with the skills to get that killer snap. This year JUE kicks off with a workshop for amateur photographers, aiming to provide them with the tools needed to be the envy of their social network feeds. The JUE Photography Workshop returns for its third installment this year and will be run by Tom Rippe a freelance photographer based in Beijing. He aims to teach budding live action photographers the secrets to a good shoot. Participants are taught some lessons before being sent to shows to capture some snaps and then reconvening to analyse their results and discuss their experiences.

TOM’S TOP TIPS FOR CAPTURING THE PERFECT SHOT:

“Realize it’s okay to make mistakes. Some people take one bad photo and go ‘My God! I’m a failure,’ but live shows are hard to shoot. It requires a certain skill set.”

“Light varies wildly across the venues in Beijing. Yugong Yishan’s lights go all over place, while Jianghu is dim and so cramped that you can’t move. Don’t buck against bad light; learn to roll with it. You don’t have control the light, it’s not a studio.”

“A lone bulb in a dankly lit venue can leave a guitar gleaming, but only if you know where to look for that special dazzling angle. Study the light to find that angle.”

The JUE photography workshop begins with an intro session at World Culture Open (WCO) in Dangdai Moma on Mar 6. Participants then attend three ‘field trips’ throughout JUE festival.

Check our top picks for other workshops and interactive events here.

This article originally appeared in our March 2014 issue

Photo: Mitchell Pe Masilun