The lovers meeting statue at Paddington Station. London, UK.
Cut Out Illusion
At Stansted airport, a souvenir shop had a cutout of Queen Elizabeth. I stood beside it for a photo.
I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it seemed a good idea. Later I used the picture for a poster promoting my talk to a Toastmasters club about Britain and British royalty.
When I returned via Heathrow I looked for it. I had forgotte that I had originally seen it at Stansted.
Anyway, I never saw that cut-out again. So I was very pleased that I took it the first time. What else can you do with a photo cut-out of yourself beside a cut-out, or a statue? Or a wedding couple, beside a statue?
Sit Or Stand beside A Statue, Lean Against A Landmark
When visiting a wedding, you can stand beside the bride and groom at a wedding, or a cut-out of them at the ceremony or Reception breakfast, lunch or dinner hall entrance.
For a cut-out to use later, a bride and groom can stand beside a statue.
Singapore Wedding Photos
In Singapore, photographers lend a series of outfits to the bride and groom for pre-wedding photos. They take a tour of statues and landmarks and waterfalls as backdrops. A cardboard cut-out of the couple can be placed at the entrance to the wedding reception hall, if necessary beside an arrow pointing left right or onwards, so in a huge hotel you know you are in the right place. The cut-out costs money but no need to pay somebody to stand directing visitors.
Hotel & Stately Home Garden Statues
Many stately homes have statues. Usually on a plinth. This means they are higher than you are. To make yourself larger, you need to stand further forward towards the camera.
Prevent posing of bride and groom in their regalia alongside statues of nudes in hotel gardens, or the naked David in Italy. That suggestive photo can feel funny at the wedding or on honeymoon. However, the picture looks wrong, obscene, in later years.
If I stand in a room with four volunteers, I can demonstrate two illusions you can create with photography.
Standing Distortion Illusion
If you went to Italy you could photograph the leaning tower of Pisa, and make it look as if you are pushing it upright. Is that silly, or amusing? It is clearly not real, but an optical illusion, in which you look the same size because you are standing in front.
Horizontal Distortion Illusion
This distortion reminds you of a lesson I learned when I was a teenager. If you photograph somebody lying horizontally on a flat beach and stand just in front of them, it looks as if they have a tiny head and big feet in front.
Do you want light relief, an escape from stress? Or serious reflection? Or some of both?
Selfies For Identifying Picture Copyright
What is the advantage of the photo of yourself pushing up the learning Tower of Pisa? For me as a photographer and travel writer of articles for magazines, books and blogs, it identified the picture as mine.
Like Hitchcock appearing in films, it satisfies my own pride as a creator, and the kudos of putting yourself in the picture.
More practically, it helps me identify a picture I have taken, which is different from anybody else's.
Personal Interest
My thought was that I should not intrude myself as an unknown nobody alongside a more famous person. However, when I rehearsed the draft of my speech to the SALT Toastmasters International speakers' training club online, my evaluator said the pictures would be more interesting to my live audience who know me if I was in the picture.
Similarly, to your own family and friends, yourself with the Tower of Pisa is of more interest.
Controlling Your Copyright
You can easily see if a picture is yours when checking to repeat pictures later in a blog or article or book. I have not yet been in a position of suing a big organization which has used my pictures without paying me.
Preventing Accidentally Infringing Copyright
The reverse is the case. I look at pictures and don't know whether they are mine or whether I have inadvertently copied a picture used privately for educational purposes, and later used it without credit in a book which is sold commercially. I dream of one day selling a best selling book on travel or photography or speech writing, which is my copyright and makes me money.
Human Scale
You can create light-hearted souvenirs of stays abroad with distinctive photos of yourself leaning against, or measuring tall landmark buildings. Or sit with statues. Here's a list of possibilities.
How To Create The Illusion
The problem for most people starting out in adapting photos is the skill needed. How do I get a photo of myself apparently pushing up the landmark, or even sitting next to a statue?
Sitting next to a statue is easy if you have one within a few miles at your home city or holiday destination. But you need time to check and re-take the picture. In practice, I have found that on a fine day, on a sunny weekend of national holiday, you might have to wait while others take their turn at taking photos.
Queues For Photos
In Asia, in Cambodia and Vietnam, whether we were in a hire car, or big coach, or little tri-shaw, you might have a ten minute wait or longer to take one of two or three photos of a statue of Buddha, or a tall historic bent tree growing out of a leaning wall, behind a queue of families, from a coach party, each wanting a photo of the whole group, then just themselves, on their own camera. I recall once having to miss out on a photo because the guide called me to join the coach which was waiting to depart.
Using AI After Your Trip
Nowadays not only a professional photographer but Mr and Mrs Tourist, or any at home AI user can adapt a photo. It used to take my husband several hours editing photos to add open eyes to a group photo where the poses were all perfect except for one person with shut eyes. More hours were spent removing the host's picture including his ex-girlfriend from last year's party for this year's party. Now editing buttons on a camera can open eyes.
On my Samsung phone, the editing buttons include lassoo which can include only me. I can cut out odd arms and legs and feet and whole bodies of bystanders. I also remove litter. Instructions to AI can do this quickly.
Serious Prayer Poses
For more serious statues, such as that of Emmeline Pankhurst the suffragette killed by a horse, or nurse Edith Cavell shot by the Nazis for helping allied soldiers escape, you might instead of grinning, look serious and hold your hands held up in prayer.
Namaste Hand Positions
Alternatively use the similar namaste Asian greeting with hands palms together carefully positioned.
I asked Gemini for the meaning of various positions.
in what area of the body are hands placed for traditional namaste greeting does it matter
Hands are placed at the chest level (near the center of the chest or heart chakra) with the palms pressed together and fingers pointing upward. For a more respectful or formal greeting, the hands can be raised higher toward the chin or between the eyebrows (the third-eye chakra), which is common when greeting teachers, elders, or spiritual figures.
Does it matter?
Yes, the height of the hands carries traditional meaning regarding respect and hierarchy:
Chest level: Standard greeting for peers, friends, or everyday acquaintances, symbolizing equality and the meeting of hearts.
Face or third-eye level: A deeper sign of respect, reverence, or submission used when showing utmost respect to teachers, elders, or deities.
Next let's look at where to find photos or real life statues and of your favourite people and interesting building to illustrate your blog, book, talk, or next holiday visit.
I shall start with those nearest me in the UK.
UK Seats and Statues
London
1 The Swan, Piccadilly
2 Mr Bean, Leicester Square
3 Stephen Fry,
Near Trafalgar Square
4 The Wild Table of Love
Two stools where a pair of visitors can perch. Popular perch for Mum and child, or couples. Praed Street, outside Paddington Station. The two sculptors from down under have more similar sculptures around the world.
5 Brunel
Engineer Brunel, who took over designing the station when his father died, built the railway west to Wales, and the ship sailing to the USA. He is seated looking serious on a plinth inside Paddington station
6 Paddington Bear, small, standing, on a platform inside Paddington Station.
7 Betjeman, bronze statue on the upper concourse of the poet and railway enthusiast who campaigned to prevent the demolition of the station and hotel.
8 The Lovers meeting. Huge statue up on the upper deck of restaurants and hotel entrance.
9 Churchill and Roosevelt
The Allies. Sit between them
10 Charlie Chaplin
11 Spike Milligan
In St Stephen's gardens, by the Stables cafe at the lower entrance. He was in addition to being a comedian, the president of a local heritage society so they honoured him with the bench. He is famous for the humorous message engraved on his gravestone, 'I told them I was ill'. The cemetery authorities banned it, so it was written in Gaelic.
12 Shakespeare -
The Shakespeare bust is outside historic Guildhall, whose exterior is always accessible. You might want to time your visit to enter the building and see the free art gallery including famous Victorian and Edwardian artworks. (Also glimpse from above a lower floor basement which has Roman remains discovered during rebuilding more recently. You might choose to pay to visit the Roman remains close up.)
13 Amy Winehouse
Standing statue of the singer and songwriter. Camden, Londonl
UK - England
Liverpool
14 The Beatles
Liverpool, England. Bronze Life size statues of long-haired lads John, Paul, George and Ringo walking along the historic waterfront at Pier Head in Liverpool, England, UK.
15 Lowry
On a bench where he used to sit near his home in the Manchester area. His paintings of local factory buildings and stick figures or leaning crowds are in a Manchester art gallery.
UK - Wales
A bike trail has several silhouettes cut into steel at intervals along the trail behind benches where you can stop to rest.
UK Scotland
Paddington Visits: The little Paddington bear in Edinburgh and other cities
UK Northern Ireland,
Belfast - capital
C S Lewis Square Statues
Ireland /Eire
Dublin - capital
Brendan Behan, Irish novelist
The Netherlands
A monument to Erasmus is in Rotterdam.
USA
Mark Twain, USA.
The bronze statue of Mark Twain sitting reading on a park bench is at the
Mark Twain House & Museum in
Hartford, Connecticut, USA.Similar outdoor literary statues are at Elmira College in Elmira, New York (where he wrote many books).
Useful Websites On Seated Statues, Leaning on Landmarks
https://www.bkor.nl/en/beeld/geboortehuis-erasmus/#gallery-2
See my previous posts on seated statues and leaning on landmarks.
Please share links to your favourite posts.
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