You can be at the party or at the party’s story. Rarely both.

Recording an event and experiencing it draw on the same attention, and there is only one of it. The moment you start collecting the story you are working, watching for the good shot, thinking about how it will read later. What you end up with is a good account of a night you were not fully at. Both are real options; they are just not simultaneous.

Decide which one you want before you go, rather than drifting into the second by default. If you choose the night, put the phone away for most of it. Somebody else will have photographs, and you will have the evening.