How to photograph yourself without the background objects and people

 

Why am I in silhouette? And how did I do it? I used to do this a long time ago but have not done it recently. I needed it because the background was unsuitable. Too many items which were unsuitable. Part of a door, a curtain. I tried removing the background by cropping but it still looked ridiculous.  irrelevant, distracting.

However, I recently tried clicking on some options in my editing function on my phone and re-discovered something Samsung calls lassoo. You encircle the item you want to keep. 

I used to find this very fiddly. If you weren't careful, you had to try a dozen times, because it would cut off your head, or your right arm, or one foot. However this time it worked perfectly. One try and I had it just as I wanted it.

If you want a photo and the background is not right, try editing it out. This is great when you are travelling and other step into the photo. Get rid of litter. Or people who you don't have permission to photograph. 

Please bookmark, and share links to your favourite posts.

Please follow me for more interesting travel tips.

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.

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.