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Wednesday, July 19, 2017

How I Photograph Through Windows On Bus Journeys

Problems
You can't take good photos because you are at odd angles, traffic gets in the way, you get reflections, and the windows are likely to be smeary.

Solutions
EDITING PHOTOS
Angles
You can adjust the angle of the photo afterwards. If that cuts out half the signpost, the elegant chimney, or the pretty tree, leave the photos which are diagonal at the corner of the page as the angle is deliberate.

Mounting
The picture is out of focus? Put it behind the bolder headline as a faded background.

Crop
Crop the picture to remove unwanted litter, people, modern signposts spoiling the view of ancient buildings. On my laptop I get a grid dividing the picture into six or nine. Moving the focus of the picture into the middle sometimes improves it no end. The same goes to people. But occasionally I find that the trees or buildings on the left and right provide a good frame. So I go back to the original which is always there.

I used to duplicate pictures to keep the original beside the cropped version and compare them. when cropping and later Now I have so many pictures that it takes hours to find anything. I have to spend more time labelling the 'Information' on every picture to be able to find distant or detail or even a person and a place. Also too many pictures takes up space and costs money in more storage.

Overlap
If cropping the bottom right cut out something important at the top right, overlap the pictures so the next picture obliterates the corner. Nobody knows what they don't see. Yes, it takes time.

Cut it to the part you want. Overlap pictures to cut out the corners.

WINDOW CLEANING
Clean the bus windows. Why doesn't the bus company clean the windows?

Maybe they do. Even if they did, the first kid eating ice cream or sweets and stand up to look out, bracing against the window when the bus jolts or leaning forward to look out smears sticky all over the window.

Inside or outside? In theory, I could do the outside of a window when the bus is stationery before it departs at the start and end of the journey.

Probably if If I were to do the journey again, I would carry window cleaner. Maybe not. Perhaps wet wipes would be lighter and less bulky.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
I have other posts on photography, destinations, learning languages, London, worldwide. Please follow, bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

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