Tips For Travel Writers and Photographers - on how to centre your photos

Problem
How do you centre a photo? You'd think it would be easy. Tap on the photo. Up comes a set of choices. Choose centre. Your photo disappears.

Luckily you can restore it with the combination of command and Z. But you are still left with the problem of how to move your photo from left to centre.

By trial and error I found the answer. I eventually tried to centre both photo and caption by choosing the way you cetnre text, selecting the bank of horizontal lines in the bar across the tap of the text area.

That worked! I wondered what would happen if I tried using that with just the photo, without the text. Yes, it did!

Author
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, Angela Lansbury. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Learning to Blog on Blogger

I have been on this blogging site for years but only recenty discovered how to make my website names turn into links. It's so simple. You click on the website name in your text and highlight it. Then click on the word link in the middle of the symbols across the top of your text screen.

Why did I never learn that before? I said to myself what I would say if I were teaching somebody else:

Don't be afraid. Just click on each symbol left to right and see what comes up. Yes, you may forget at first. But do it every day for a week and you'll soon get familiar with each symbol and what it can do for you.

I started following my own advice, clicking on the symbols. I thought I knew almost all of them although I regularly use only a few. I think you will be as amazed as I was at what I found. The big surprise was the little face symbol. I'll come to that later. I'll take each symbol in logical order.

Left arrow. That's undo. Really handy. Right arrow is redo (or restore).

F is font.
Click on the downwards arrow.
Default fonts are: Arial courier georgia Helvetica Times Trebuschet and Verdana.

T is text (size)
Smallest, small, normal, large and largest.

 If you have copied a piece of text from elsewhere, such as Wikipedia, and inserted it, you might find you now have two pieces of texts in different sizes. You can increase the size of the small text to make it more readable. Or reduced the size of a footnote.

B is for bold.
I is for Italic.
U underscored is underline.

ABC struck through - why would you need this? I suppose a teacher could show a pupil a delted word which was wrongl spelled, or correcting a proof but leaving the original visible but not part of your text.

The Large A underscored is text colour.

If you copy a text from elsewhere and it appears in green or blue you can change it back to black.

The paintbrush is for text background colour. Probably most useful when you make a text box like a poster with a word against a background, or to highlight parts of your text.

If you have a drama script for an amateur dramatics play or skit, you might highlight with a background yellow colour the parts which you speak. Highlight in green background the last sentence or last two words which are the cue from the other character that you should be ready to speak.

Link turns the website name into another colour when you hover over it. When you click on it you, the reader, automatically get connected to the website.

The movie clipboard symbolises video if you want to insert video.

Smiley face. What did I think it was? Maybe a smiley face?

Yes, indeed, if you want to insert smiley faces and emoticaons.

Also a host of other symbols including:
the Euro symbol of a £ or $ sign,
an umbrella, a bicycle for a map.
Mahjong and domino pieces.
See Hebrew and Arabic and Aramaic.
Chinese. Cuneform.

Photos Which Keep You Happy? Avoiding Embarrassing Photos, Caught Out By Captions?

Problems
Am I giving out too much information? Or not enough?

Answers
What is Too Much Information?

PICTURES
NO
2 Instant revelations of people out of their home which could lead to them being burgled.

3 Pictures of private homes or stately homes revealing valuables or windows which could lead to your being accused of revealing too much to potential robbers.

4 Pictures of family groups where family insist on including their children, then afterwards decide children should not be put on the internet.

5 People don't want you to use a photo of a group which includes their children. (Answers: Crop the photo. Take at least one picture of adults only.

CAPTIONS
1 Surnames of people who have privacy concerns.
2 Names with complicated spelling you might get wrong and can't check.
3 Wrong caption.

SUBJECT COMPLAINS OF SHUT EYES
'Take down the picture - I've got my eyes closed. Use another picture.'
When I am the subject I rarely complain. If you are a nuisance, the photographer just cuts you out of all future pictures.

Sometimes I tell a group:
face the front,
keep your eyes open wide,
smile,
check you are not taller than the person behind,
don't wave hands - it creates blur.

The photographer might say, or think, "Sorry. I'm working I don't have time to edit pictures. I've taken 100 people. If I had to edit every picture I'd spend all week on it. I'm not getting paid. If you don't want to be photographed, don't come to the meeting."

CHECK CAPTIONS FOR ERRORS
1 Check spellings of all names. Look for missing double letters. Compare names with public records. If in doubt, phone and ask.
2 After an article or email or web post is published, read back a moment later, a day later, even years later. Today I discovered that an email I had sent including the place name B o r e h a m Wood had been changed by an automatic spell checker to Boredom Wood!

PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME INCLUDED:
It is useful to include the photographer's name.
1 A professional or semi-professional photographer might expect a credit as advertising and a form of payment.
2 The amateur photographer may feel flattered that you think the pictures are good enough or that you have taken the time and trouble to thank them and remember that they spent so much time photographing and editing photos.
3 You can go back and ask, "Do you have any more pictures? We want to include one of the mayor / VIP visitor / the first place winner."

MAKING HUMAN INTEREST
The club banner might be useful as a tiny postage stamp size to head every letter.
If you want the name read, you need to enlarge it.
Make sure you have permission to use a copyright item - you must not use it so it appears you are representing a company if you are not.

Add human interest, a badge being worn by the winner.
However, if the winner wants to be anonymous, the photo of the badge or trophy alone could be helpful.

A vast hall with only four people in it looks empty.
Cut or crop the picture to just the four and you have a happy little group.
However, if you want to show the size of a cathedral the picture including just one little person shows the scale and grandeur of the building.

If you person on the end of a row of seats has arms crossed looking belligerent or bored, I sometimes crop them out.

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

Tips on translating with Google and other sites

Problem
You copy from Google translate and the text breaks into half lines or disappears and floats. What did you do wrong? How can you stop this happening?

Answers

You can copy the translations from google. The text comes out large. So you have to make each word smaller. It would be faster to copy several as a list, then make them all smaller.

If you copy the text which runs over two lines, the text you copy has embedded the same line break. So you have to type out the words and copy only any letter with an accent.

Translation Checks
Google offers you alternative translations for words which can be translated several ways according to context.

If you print out several phrases from your automatic translator, you can show them to somebody who is bilingual on the plane to your destination and ask them if the translation is correct. If you have a long list and they are busy, get them to check just one sentence. If you ask the same person a couple of times, and find two or three people, you can work your way down your page without causing too much trouble nor getting told they don't have time. If you are lucky, they will come back to you later when they have time.

I have several more posts on learning languages. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, teacher of English and other languages. I can teach in person and on Skype.

Photographic Competitions - some suggestions, or Instagram

Google photographic competitions to see what you can enter and what inspires you.
What do you need to do?
Take photos in the categories listed.
Make sure your photo is sharp.
Do not take any pictures which might infringe somebody else's copyright.

First look through your existing photos to see what you have in the listed categories.
If you have a good subject, but bad lighting, go back and take more photos in better light. If your photo is not sharp, go back and take another photo with a tripod.

If previous winning competitions included human interest, or objects to illustrate size, add these to your composition.
1 Dress in your best clothes. Take a selfie. Or use time lapse.
2 Take your dog or a family member's dog. For example, a photo of a tree might be enhanced, or size exaggerated, with a dog or bird.
3 Set up time lapse in your garden and take multiple shots hoping a bird or cat or spider will come into view.

Many competitions have closing dates far ahead. You have time to take many different photos or many photos of the same scene with different lighting, people, or added objects.

Emotions
Add the joy of a prizewinner. The sadness of a funeral. Loneliness. Crowds. One person out of step.

Contrasts
Large and small. Old and young. Light and dark.

https://www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/2017/open

Instagram
If you don't feel your photos are ready for competitions, you might like to use Instagram. A new friend told me she does not use Facebook which is full of distracting text. She used Instagram just to put up photos.

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

Leftover take away - how to remember to put it in the fridge

If I ask for leftovers at a restaurant/pub/cafe to be wrapped up to go (in the UK we say take away) I usually remember to put them in the fridge when I get home if the food is carried separately. Unfortunately, if it's inside a bag such as a tote bag, often I forget for an hour or so, or even overnight?

How can I - and you - and everybody else - remember? Let's devise some systems.

1 Cross your fingers.

2 Keep a ribbon in your bag and tie it to the handle whenever you have purchases or leftovers which need to be removed.

3 Set a timer on your phone to go off when you reach home.

4 Send yourself a text message or email reminder.

5 Place a note on your fridge door before going out to dinner in case you bring anything back.

7 Have a ribbon on your door key so that whenever you reach home you think: Do I have anything to put in the fridge.

8 Wear a pendant or charm bracelet featuring a piece of fruit or tea cup or some kind of food or drink or cutlery or crockery as a reminder.

9 Stick a bookmark in your diary with the words LOOK FOR LEFTOVER FOOD.

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