Two ways to take a panorama from a hotel or home balcony

Problem
Your eye sees the panorama. The camera sees just a small section.

Answers
1 The iphone has a panorama facility. Locate the panorama icon and hold it down whilst swinging the camera. You can get a 360 degrees view.

2 you can stitch together a series of stills which you have taken by moving your camera fractions of an inch, holding it steady on the edge of a balcony or wall or table or upright. (Do keep the camera securely fastened to yourself by a strap so you don't drop it over!)

The free softward available on line is called
hugin.

We did a sunset panorama of the whitle skyscrapers turned pink in the sunset. The hugin system made all the skyscrapers upright.

You could also do the same view at different times of day, morning, noon and evening. The contrast is interesting for you as a camera operator and as a display of contrasting pictures.

An interesting contrast would be something in the foreground such as a seasonal plant, so long as this remains in focus.

Foreground
If in doubt, try the photo once with the foreground item and once without. I like a picture with a table and two empty chairs and a vase of flowers or a bowl of fruit, or a pot plant.

You could add more interest with hobbies.
Cultural or artistic and creative items
Such as an artist's easel,
A magazine or book
Notebooks and pens

Sporty items: a bicycle, swimming or diving gear,

Local interest
Guidebooks, a book or local magazine,
 something local to the area such as a tile,
a decorative empty birdcage,

Personalise The Picture
Print a card with your name and hang it on the wall. No matter how small. That identified your photo (in case anybody ever wants to copy it. Even if nobody sees, you will know. It could be like the teeny picture of Hitchcock in his films (movies), and the tiny mouse carved by the carver in the north of England on everything he created. A challenge for the viewer is to blow up the picture and find the hidden card with your name, perhaps a tag on a basket of flower.

Clothing
a ranger's hat, climbing boots, skis, a surf board,

Food and drink
a diary, the novel you have written, a cocktail, local fruits, winter flowers, spring flowers, summer flowers, autumn flowers, seasonal items such as pumpkins, Halloween, Valentine's day, a Santa outfit, reindeer and sleigh.

Alternatively, add a seasonal border later.

Eliminate Clutter
However, you will probably find it hard to focus on the foreground. In that case, make a point of moving anything which could spoil the view.

Clean Up
In a hotel, you might need to clean the chairs and wash down the table and floor area.

You might want to take a second picture with focus on the foreground items and the backdrop as a backdrop.

Printing A Panorama
You can also print out a panorama as a long poster to brighten a boring bedroom or long living room or corridor wall.

Christmas and Birthday Gifts
You can roll it up and post it as a Christmas present. We took a panorama of a vineyard (Rioja, Northern Spain) with the vineyard owner on the top of a hill pointing out the landscape and river below to a visitor.

Making Use Of Spare Time
If you are stuck in a hotel room or at home waiting for visitors to come back from a conference or arrive off a plane, you can amuse yourself by filling the time with some photography.

Hotel Viewpoints
In Madeira our bedroom balcony gave a view partly spoiled by a crane. I walked along the corridor and found a deserted public balcony with a fabulous view. The moral is, check the public areas all around your building for alternative views.

Angela Lansbury
travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Packing, Unpacking and Photo-packing Efficiently

I unpacked a weekend bag containing a night dress, a swimsuit and wrap, two caftans, one set of matching underwear and socks, a matching baseball cap, and a folding fan.

I now have four choices.
1 STORE CLOTHES IN WEEKEND TRAVEL BAG
Leave the contents in the bag which I store in an overhead cupboard, under a bed or chair or in the attic.

2 PHOTOGRAPH CONTENTS
Photograph the contents and keep the bag already packed for another weekend trip. I used to keep a bag packed when I was at my busiest as a travel writer in the 1980s and 1990s, until my mother died and I became a carer for my late father.

My first photo was just of all the items jumbled up. That looked untidy and was discouraging. So I folded everything into oblongs - easier to re-pack or store in a drawer, and matched the hats and underwear by colour.

I could have added, or noted, any missing, matching items such as a swimming cap and shoes. My other missing items would be swimming goggles, slippers, a small flannel or towel, spare socks, toothbrush and toothpaste, or wash kit (usually in either handbag or pocket or acquired en route on airline. Plus mosquito repellent or sign relief or both.

WASHING
You wash the contents at the destination. Then wash your travel clothes and put them back in the bag on top of the other clothes.

Make sure you don't leave a wet swimsuit in the bag. If it has gone mouldy, you may have to soak it in a mild bleaching solution to get rid of visible mould, then run it through a washing machine three times to get rid of the smell.

I did this once, after getting mould on a brand new swimsuit. I was not prepared to throw it away.

I reckoned that even if I ruined the elastic, that was no worse than throwing it away. If the elastic had gone, I would have recycled any fastenings and cut the good parts out in strips, spiralled and sewn in place, to make rosettes on black swimsuits and/or black sarongs.

3 RE-PACKING FROM THE LIST
If you need to use the clothes back home, or want to use the wheeled bag, you unpack the contents. However, you keep a photo of the contents as a visual packing list.

You might change the contents seasonally in the USA and Europe. But take a photograph to speed packing next time.

SEASONAL CLOTHES
Or keep two or four small bags colour coded for seasons. Red for summer. Orange for autumn. Pink for spring. Black or white for winter.

If you possess only one suitcase on wheels, such as a black wheel on bag, just photograph the contents with a piece of coloured paper or seasonal pictures such as Santa, daffodil for spring, autumn leaf. Or simply print the word of the season to place alongside the contents:
SPRING
SUMMER
AUTUMN
WINTER.

Keep the picture on your computer under the title packing. Or print the list and put it in the top of the suitcase or the outside pocket, if it has one, or the inside of your wardrobe / closet door.

You are now ready to re-pack for the next trip using the visual aid to find the contents. You can also use this as a checklist in a hotel to be sure your swimsuit has not been left behind hanging to dry in the bathroom or balcony.

VALET PACKING
If you are in an accident, or hospital, or are on business half way to the airport and running late, you can ask a family member or colleague or hotel valet to pack using the photo list.

I've never had valet packing. Only valet parking. But now with the aid of the photos I can be my own valet. It's so much simpler and quicker to use a photo as a packing list. I feel more efficient.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,a author and speaker.
Author of How To Get Out of The Mess You're In.

Blog readers and readership at different times of day

I aim to write a blog post first thing in the morning. If I write late at night and have already reached my target (50 more readers than this time last year), I schedule the post to appear tomorrow.

Jeremy Jacobs (great alliterative name) who at one time was the most widely read blogger (probably still is) gave me two pieces of u s e f u l advice. (Predictive text turned the word with spaces into usual, presumably a more usual word.)

1 Affiliate your blog to others to get reciprocal readership.
2 Write seven blogs on Sunday and schedule them to appear through the week so you never risk missing a day because you are away. This timing leaves you free to go out to work during the week and not delayed writing blog posts.

How to Schedule
What does schedule mean? It means in this context, delay publication of your post to a later date, and time.

It was a while before I discovered the 'schedule' word to click on brings up a calendar. Unfortunately the timing never seems to match where I am writing as I move around the world. In case you don't know and are writing a blog post, on the right hand side of your screen in the column under Settings, second down is the word schedule and a little clock. Click on this and up comes the calendar.

Seasonal Posts
If I find or take a photo of hearts, I can save that for a post scheduled for publication on Valentine's Day, Feb 14, this year or next. The same applies to Christmas. And any other article which can relate to a seasonal event. I might read that a recipe was used for an ethnic festival. Not of any great interest today, but a nice seasonal post on the day of that festival, especially if I visit that continent at the right time of year.

Where Are Readers
I avidly the place and number of readers, and compare posts. Are more people interested in Asia or in America? Do seasonal posts get more clicks? Yes. Does a new restaurant get more interest than a re-visit to an old one? Yes.

I noticed I have more readers in the USA. That may be because I am writing in English so the English speaking countries will provide more potential readers. Also more Americans than people in other countries.

Sometimes I have the illusion that I have huge numbers of readers in the morning. On reflection, I see that I have posted at 1 am English time and the Americans are awake but the Asians are asleep.

My son works in marketing and tell me I would get more readers if I angled my blog very specifically, for example, bargains, luxury, weird and wonderful.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.