When you think about it, there are a lot of steps to just about everything. The most immediate task may be pretty straight forward, but chances are there are a lot of steps leading up to it.
Candid photography seems simple enough. In many ways it is, just point and shoot.
Sometimes that works just fine, but not often. Candids are uncontrolled, As a photographer you can’t pose your subject, because then it’s not candid. But you can control how you create the shot. It’s all about framing and timing. The key is to see the whole picture, so to speak.
You are like a hunter looking for your prey. When you spot your target, you need to zero in to line up your shot keeping your eye on both the foreground and the background. Chances are your quarry is animated, in motion, so you need to anticipate where it likely will be and what it likely will be doing when you take your shot. Sometimes this happens quickly, other times it requires patient stalking. Either way there are plenty of steps involved. Consistently getting good candids doesn’t just happen.