Problem
I photograph an object on a table and the shadow of my mobile phone and my head is on the lower half of the photo.
Answers
Practise Eliminating Your Own Shadow
Practice with the phone in your hand before taking a photo.
Practise Indoors
1 Practise on your kitchen table.
2 Practise looking through the window at your own garden ready to snap a bird or fox.
Outdoors
You won't have time when photographing a moving or living object such as an insect or passing car, so practise in advance likely situations.
1 Stand at a window watching traffic. Practise taking photo through a window to avoid getting your reflection or the street behind you when photographing through shop windows when window shopping or taking Christmas displays.
2 Go into the garden or park to photograph objects on the ground such as snails, or on a pond.
Indoors
Turn off the overhead light.
Move and photograph near a window which creates light all over the object.
Lean forward so your shadow covers enough of the object to leave just a small lighter contrast at the top of your photo which you can crop out.
Ask somebody else to hold an umbrella above you to mask out the overhead light. A white umbrella will cast light. The bigger the umbrella, the more options you have. When buying an umbrella, remember a white one would be handy when taking photos. In a studio a large white umbrella is used to create even light on a portrait. The umbrella is fixed on a tripod and can be tilted.
Light, Dark and Silhouettes
However, you might deliberately cut out light, for example, to create a silhouette. If standing with your subject's back to a window, their face is all in shadow, which is no good. However, if they stand sideways against the light (in French called contre jour) you get the profile of the forehead and nose and lips which can be interesting.
Ask an expert in your family. I did and was told:
Parallel Lines
Move the camera to one side or away from an object on a table. However, this may distort the picture by changing the parallel lines.
Edit distorted parallel lines with an option called perspective.
We bought a photo from a professional who took photos of the interior and exterior of Guildhall. Using a camera tilted up (to get the tops of buildings, columns, rooftops and spires), everything was leaning.
You might choose to leave a photo like this. Alternatively, you might leave it or do it deliberately to create a sense of being small and dominated by buildings looming over you.
Buying and Editing
Your own eye sees this but with a camera it is distorted. We paid for the photo we liked the most and downloaded it. Afterwards, having downloaded the photo we have paid for (which now has the watermark removed) we can correct and edit it ourselves.
Credits and Conditions
When loading up you might wish to check what the conditions are. Wikipedia has various conditions chosen by the original photographer, which may be free use including giving them credit, or simply using it, either allowing you to edit photos as you like, sometimes not changing it because you might distort it and this could reflect badly on the reputation of the photographer who created the original image.
Credits For Photographer and Editor
I generally put, 'photo taken by ...' (name of photographer), edited by ... (my name). This gives me credit for improvements. However, the photographer might disagree that my version is better, in which case to protect them and protect myself I have made it clear that there's another version by the original photographer.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
I photograph an object on a table and the shadow of my mobile phone and my head is on the lower half of the photo.
Answers
Practise Eliminating Your Own Shadow
Practice with the phone in your hand before taking a photo.
Practise Indoors
1 Practise on your kitchen table.
2 Practise looking through the window at your own garden ready to snap a bird or fox.
(NB Americans simplify spelling, following Webster's dictionary, and use the same spelling for the noun and verb. In traditional British English, to verb uses S, 'to 'practise', but the noun has c, the usual practice'.)
You won't have time when photographing a moving or living object such as an insect or passing car, so practise in advance likely situations.
1 Stand at a window watching traffic. Practise taking photo through a window to avoid getting your reflection or the street behind you when photographing through shop windows when window shopping or taking Christmas displays.
2 Go into the garden or park to photograph objects on the ground such as snails, or on a pond.
Indoors
Turn off the overhead light.
Move and photograph near a window which creates light all over the object.
Lean forward so your shadow covers enough of the object to leave just a small lighter contrast at the top of your photo which you can crop out.
Ask somebody else to hold an umbrella above you to mask out the overhead light. A white umbrella will cast light. The bigger the umbrella, the more options you have. When buying an umbrella, remember a white one would be handy when taking photos. In a studio a large white umbrella is used to create even light on a portrait. The umbrella is fixed on a tripod and can be tilted.
Light, Dark and Silhouettes
However, you might deliberately cut out light, for example, to create a silhouette. If standing with your subject's back to a window, their face is all in shadow, which is no good. However, if they stand sideways against the light (in French called contre jour) you get the profile of the forehead and nose and lips which can be interesting.
Ask an expert in your family. I did and was told:
Parallel Lines
Move the camera to one side or away from an object on a table. However, this may distort the picture by changing the parallel lines.
Edit distorted parallel lines with an option called perspective.
We bought a photo from a professional who took photos of the interior and exterior of Guildhall. Using a camera tilted up (to get the tops of buildings, columns, rooftops and spires), everything was leaning.
You might choose to leave a photo like this. Alternatively, you might leave it or do it deliberately to create a sense of being small and dominated by buildings looming over you.
Buying and Editing
Your own eye sees this but with a camera it is distorted. We paid for the photo we liked the most and downloaded it. Afterwards, having downloaded the photo we have paid for (which now has the watermark removed) we can correct and edit it ourselves.
Credits and Conditions
When loading up you might wish to check what the conditions are. Wikipedia has various conditions chosen by the original photographer, which may be free use including giving them credit, or simply using it, either allowing you to edit photos as you like, sometimes not changing it because you might distort it and this could reflect badly on the reputation of the photographer who created the original image.
Credits For Photographer and Editor
I generally put, 'photo taken by ...' (name of photographer), edited by ... (my name). This gives me credit for improvements. However, the photographer might disagree that my version is better, in which case to protect them and protect myself I have made it clear that there's another version by the original photographer.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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