How To Improve Club Photos And Increase PR And Goodwill (Part 2)

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Look at this picture of Harrovian Speakers. I like it because it makes a change from the usual standing still pictures.

 I could chop the distracting chair on the right. Sometimes foreground objects and people are a distraction. At other times they help create a feeling of depth.

I could remove the blank floor in front to make people bigger. If I make the people bigger, if it's taken just on a smartphone, not with a professional camera on a tripod, I might find too few pixels (dots) and blurry faces. Removing the blank floor is what I usually do. However, in this instance, I left it because cropping made the picture look too crowded and busy. You can slide a piece of white paper or even your forefinger over the photo to see how cropping will affect the composition.

Sharing With Subjects
Sometimes a club requires you to submit all your photo to the President or video master or whoever manages the club website. They might put up all your photos unedited. Or select only the winners of competitions.

The video master might be away on holiday or busy with work. Meanwhile, club members are phoning you and asking, Where can I see my photo?

This involves you in chasing and hassling the video master. It wastes your time.

An alternative is to send each photo individually to the video master and the subject. You might do this with half a dozen excellent photos, such as the VIP of the evening (the secretary might forward this attached to the thank you to the mayor).

Sending Individual Photos
You might send the carbon copy to a member of your family who is a speaker. You might send yourself a copy, in addition to the sent file, to keep track of what has been sent if you have to send photos intermittently.

Sending Photos In Bulk
Some recipients won't want to be sent photos one by one, because this clutters up their email inbox. They will want the whole lot together, such as in Dropbox.

Audience Photos
If there's a lull in proceedings, for example, whilst a speaker is trying to set up the projector, you can fill the time, save time later, and keep the audience entertained by taking audience photos.

First picture. Too many front seat gaps. One person in front row looking down at notes

On the other side of the aisle, I have vacated the seat on the right but somebody has leaped in to fill it. But we have a gap.

I could crop the photo to cut out the empty seat in the front row - but we would lose the lady on the far left. Maybe we can crop the photo to make a picture just of her. Let's tidy up those bags on the floor. Push them back and make them parallel to the chairs. 

The left is perfect. The centre is perfect. 

We have an empty chair on the right, but lovely smile from the girl, Satya, behind the empty chair.

Now I am back in my chair and somebody else is taking the photo. 

Next time I shall make sure the entire front row is filled, or ask the person sitting on the far left to move to fill the empty seat.

I don't have a wide angle lens, so I have to take a photo first of the audience on the left, then on the right, finally the centre to catch those in the centre aisle and get a duplicate of some members of the audience.

Filling Front Rows
I have lots of audience photos which look like gappy teeth. Seats in front are empty. People at the back are too far to be seen. The members of the audience look small. Better to have people at the back come forward.

Why do people sit at the back? Those guarding the door may need to leap up to welcome latecomers. Anybody who needs to leave early might choose to sit near an exit at the back. Some people are just shy.

If there's an empty chair in the from row, such as the one you have vacated, ask somebody on stage to step down and take the chair. Or ask somebody behind to take the seat in front.

The more you communicate with the subjects of photos and the club, the more you can keep everybody happy and learn new ways to take even better photos to please more people.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

More Russian Letters to Learn Alphabet A-U.

The Cyrillic Alphabet

The English alphabet, written in Latin script, starts ABCDE. The Russian letters go ABvgDE.

The two dots above the second E remind me of little yo-yos or eyes. The sound is Y.  

Next, comes a complicated looking letter. I imagine a trapped fly getting angry trying to find its way out. Zch! The next letter like a reversed e or a long-tailed lower case z in gothic script still traps that angry fly - Z!

K is easy, same sound as in Kick. 

In English we have KLM. The next three letters are the same in the Russian alphabet. As usual, the Russians are like the R in toys R us. The L is reversed, or like a gothic L, starting with a fancy curve.

M is M.  Next tomes N. Except that the Russian scientist, a very fussy man, doesn't like diagonals so he has straightened it out with a bar.

Forget the letter Q. The next letters sound like the English, OPRS. The P is like a goal post.

Easy to remember from the railway station sign for the word park. 

The R was made by the Russians rushing to complete the theatre set.  The R is missing the last diagonal and looks like a P. (The don't need a P because they already had it in the last letter.) Alternatively, remember PR, the initials for public relations, when you see the letter P in Russian it's the same as an English R.

The next letters in the English alphabet are STU.

The sound S is written with a C like the C in the English words place and palace and police. (The Russians already have K for the English c sound.) 

After t comes U. In Russian written with a Y shape like Yew and You. 

See Wikipedia to hear the sounds.

That's enough for one lesson. In lesson one, we dealt with five Russian letters, ABVG and SH! 

Lesson two another few, from lines one and two: D Y Z.

I decide to teach the English alphabet to Russian children so I write what looks like an H with a slanting line, and copy it into a piece of scenery for a theatrical play, with hinges. An efficient Russian workman comes along and snaps it shut, forming what the Russian children in the audience now think is an I sound.

Time for a coffee break. Come back to the next post for some more Russian letters.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages. See my previous posts on learning Russian. Please bookmark your favourite posts and follow me and share links with your family and friends.

PS - Watch out for my two new travel websites coming soon. One will be on destinations. The other will be on what to pack and wear. I shall announce it on one of my posts on this website within a week. This website has the words Angela Lansbury and travel. One of the new ones will contain the word travel.

Spare Shoes and Slippers For Travelling, Spare Ties and Jackets

Problems
I've needed spare shoes on four occasions:

1 Ferry to Bukom Island, Singapore - health and safety on ferry to oil refinery island.

2 Club dress codes. I go online to check dress codes at clubs. If you are a member of a club you probably have reciprocal agreements with clubs around the world. You can check the dress codes for their restaurants.

3 On planes leaving on a chute to the ground in an emergency you need to remove heeled shoes which at speed could rip the fabric or get caught in any obstruction or tag, also impede you in running away from the plane which could explode or catch fire.

4 Safety regulations may require you to wear shoes with : covering toes to protect them; and with solid backs, not straps at the back, so shoes don't fall off.

5 Dress codes in some clubs require men and women to wear shoes with covered toes (for reasons of formality, smell, and sight of uncovered body offending some; also no flip flops (called thongs in Australia, the sort which are backless and have a toe post) nor 'slippers' (in Singapore meaning backless shoes either with a band across the toe or a covered front but no back - the sort you can slip your toes into, of the sort worn casually or around the house for ease, no grip and make a slushing noise which annoys others, looks sloppy, and as you walk they prevent you walking with lifting your feet so you are more likely to trip over steps, and again could be smelly as well as exposing the feet to view and not sufficiently formal when surrounded by people dressed up for business meetings, weddings, anniversaries, engagement parties and other celebrations.

6 My heel broke at an event.

7 My rubber soled platform heels disintegrated at an evening dinner at a conference.

Answers
1 If you are in a health and safety environment you need closed shoes or shoe covers. Black is less conspicuous if you don't want to get attention. However a mere thin plastic rain or pool shoe cover might not be considered protective.

2 Exchange or borrow shoes from somebody in an office on land just for the ferry journey.

3 Ensure all members of your group know the dress code in your first invitation email. (And report the dress code in all later emails.) Don't wait until they confirm they are attending. They might not reply if they think they are not able to make the meeting and might join the group at the last minute. The search for shoes, or wait, or change of people attending, and escorting them back to base as a courtesy, can cause disruption, delay and embarrassment to everybody. They might send in their stead another colleague who has been invited by phone or is out of email contact and does not get the follow up emails containing the dress code.

4 Go through your cupboard and find your lightest to carry closed shoes. If you are a group organiser, or travelling by car and don't mind extra wight and bulk, carry a spare pair small for ladies and large for men to lend to others. You might go for a year and a hundred meetings and never need them. Then one day, you are the person who saves the day.

5 If you are visiting 5 star hotels and restaurants carry a spare tie. Whether you are a man or a woman, one of your family or business group may be without a tie, demanding that the entire group leaves. Also travel with a spare tie on any long trip.

Stories
Disintegrating Heel - UK conference
My rubber soled platform heels disintegrated.
It happened as I walked to the basement ballroom along a long corridor, leaving black mess everywhere. I began limping, one foot high than the other, danger of falling. No chance of dancing later.

(Luckily I was at a hotel at a conference in Brighton, England. However, my dinner companion was annoyed that I arrived at dinner late, missing the opening speech.) My new (to me) gold evening shoes were very pretty gold leather shoes with a black rubber type base made by a top end high street store, my third pair, originally I had one pair from the shop, then a second bought in a sale, but I bought a third second hand pair years after they were out of production from a second hand shop. Shoes disintegrate a lot - I've read whole forums on this with customers from the USA and UK and Singapore with even brand new or never worn shoe heels and bases disintegrating, including designer shoes.

USA Broken Sandals
In the Sixties in Haight Ashbury, with scrappy gladiator type shoes, after two months of trading about, my shoes fell apart. You would think you would be able to find a shoe mender. No. Cheap replacement shoes in small size suitable for a lot of walking. No.

Indian Wedding
I want to India, having been told we were dressing casually. On the plane we were delayed 24 hours and made friends with somebody going to their relative's wedding, who invited us to attend. You just never know when you will be invited to a wedding in a country where all comers are invited, or a PR invites you to an opening of an event, a foreign country is celebrating a national holiday, a member of royalty of government is visiting your hotel or hostel, new office or school.

Tips
Companies supplying spare / fold up shoes
Mahabis.com
rollaoole.com
cocorose.london.com
Foldashoe.com
fitkicksshoes.com
If you just want spare towelling slippers to wear in a hotel or home when your outdoor shoes are wet from rain or snow or mud, you can buy backless towelling slippers from the Pounds shops or similar shops in the UK.
Look out for cheap spare shoes in the sales.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my books on Lulu.com and Amazon.com

What is your travel blog doing for you?

A travel blog can do these things for you:

Are you writing daily for fun, for pleasure or profit, and could you do more of less of one and more or less of the other? Are you buying, keeping a record of travel and tours you bought, doing PR for others and yourself, paid or unpaid (if a paid advertisement or PR you must declare your interest/bias), or selling a place or product or experience for money?

You can make money by selling items for pennies to millions of people. Alternatively sell an item costing millions to one person.

Not sure? Use a blog to test the market. Use three websites or blog posts try all and see which is most successful.

(If not successful, or not willing to do all this work, admit you are retired and doing it for pleasure. If so, at least you have a positive answer for those business people who ask - are you making any money out of this?)

1 Personal:
 Help you keep a record of your travels. For your own use. Just in case you ever need it. Write a book for your family or descendants. Fill in your c.v. Prove from pictures of your passport and suitcase where you lost an item you are claiming on insurance and give the brand name.

2 Public or semi-public:
Enable you to share your records - with friends; and/or family; and/or acquaintances and/or colleagues. Just in case you ever need it. (Go into travel business. Start a new travel business. Start a new career. Write a book for the public.

3 PR:
Retired or interrupted career due to change of job, country, divorce, retirement, enable to show you are still in the know.

4 Focus:
Enable you or others to see your unique focus to start a business or book. Find out which posts get most readers and from which countries. I get most readers on
1) Where I am expert because I was there first -
for example restaurants in my local high street in London, or other countries.
2) Researched and tried and tested consumer advice
For example, travel advice on wider interest subjects such as travel suitcases attracts readers worldwide but two to one from the USA
3) Wild and wacky or unusual restaurants/theme parks/attractions
For example a botanical garden in Singapore with great photos gets readers from a range of countries.
4) Newsletter:
Gather readers or followers as you draft a newsletter. Send out through scheduling. Spend less time on blogging or use blog to direct readers to newsletter and link blog posts to other blog posts.

Angela Lansbury, author (books); photojournalist (travel/consumer shopping) and speaker (serious and humorous).

How I started my hunt for honeymoon suites with four poster bed

I was at the height, the heyday, of my career as a travel writer, on the fringes of a freelance career, writing about honeymoon destinations and romantic hotels. It has started on my honeymoon in Morocco when we shyly failed to announce in advance that we were honeymooners, and were given twin beds. The following summer, for our anniversary we toured England and Scotland. At every hotel I asked to see the honeymoon suite, although almost every one was beyond our budget, I got to see it, enjoy the oo - ah surprise of opening the door and being delighted. Then Brides magazine invited readers to send in their stories. I sent in my pictures and text, and was invited to write more.

From then on every time I entered a hotel, whether as a journalist on another assignment, often just having a meal, or attending a drinks reception, I asked to see the honeymoon suite. I acquired hundreds of photos of honeymoon suites around the world.

The biggest tourism surprise was my conversation with the PR for England's Lake District. I was invited up for an event and asked the PR lady if she had a hotel with a honeymoon suite with a four poster which I could see. She went silent.

I thought I had embarrassed her because she could not think of one. Honeymoon suites were my speciality. Often the hotel PR did not even think about them. They were too busy showing off the conference centre microphones, the restaurant's new stainless steel kitchen, the size of the car park. They did not know the hotel's main bedroom had a four poster bed in the attic, until I pointed it out in the hotel brochure from three years ago, before they'd added the new conference centre with the spa and 100 identical new bedrooms.

'You don't have a hotel with a four poster bed?' I queried. 'Is that the problem?'

'No,' she answered. 'In the lake district almost every hotel has a four poster bed. Most hotels have two. Some have several.'

You can imagine that I came home from that trip with lot of photos.

Business Meetings Abroad where? Airport lounges

 Airport Lounge or Hotel in Transit
a) Choices
Check out the airline lounges airside and land side. Check time needed for stopover and be sure to adjust for changing time zones.
b) Challenges
You may be too short of time to leave the airport on one leg of the journey or going in one direction.
c) Solutions
Meet at an airport lounge or airport restaurant or airport hotel restaurant going one direction. Meet again on return journey.
d) Find out if any airlines affiliated to your carrier have lounges airside or land side. Also if the person you are meeting has a link with an airline which has a lounge.
e) If all else fails, find a coffee shop in the airport.
f) Or a coffee shop in a hotel adjoining the airport. Or a hotel with a shuttle bus.

I had this problem as a travel writer visiting St Louis in the USA. The PR for the city arranged to meet me and my family on our outbound stopover in the middle of the American continent flying East for only about an hour between East coast Washington DC and West coast America. During the first stop we went through the paperwork, brochures showing attractions of the city and arranged our itinerary for our return which he arranged whilst we were away.

On the longer return trip we had a four or five hour stopover. The PR for the tourist board met us at the airport with a car and took us on a tour of the city to a hotel, a restaurant for a quick lunch, and a museum, then up the Gateway Arch (pre-arranged with the attraction PR with complimentary tickets for the press but also to bypass the queue), then raced back to the airport to get us on the flight home.

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer, photographer, author, speaker.
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