Taking pictures can be easy. But to take great pictures you have to be willing to move that body, scale walls, climb towers and observe everything around you, top to bottom.
It was a real challenge for us taking pictures ensuring they were properly aligned, straight and framed. Sometimes you are not sure if a building needs to be squared off or if it should be aligned with the street.
But there is more than one way to skin a cat. You simply look for a straight line in what you want to take a picture of and use it to guide you to achieve a straight and framed picture, just like the picture below of the Jesuit Church in Toledo.
Continue to slightly tilt the cell phone camera until you reach that point in which you visually feel that you have it properly aligned. You could always crop the picture later on to make sure it’s straight.
In general, we look for interesting details to take a photograph such as plasterworks, mural paintings, lamps, etc. But to achieve that picture you have to move, lie on the floor. Images that are a result of using the ground can be spectacular. Inclining the cell phone camera can produce interesting and unique angles.
Practically one needs to become a human tripod o even a gymnast, literally! You stand, hold the cell phone camera, raise your arms and tilt backwards.
And little by little you sway to capture that spectacular dome duly framed, those beautiful ceilings, those incredible frescos. Come nightfall, you’ll be in need of a good massage, but it would have all been well worth the effort. Those images represent the memories of a great trip.
We would also take 3 o 4 shots of an image in order to select 2. We would immediately delete the unwanted photos from the cell phone gallery.
This way, we freed up memory while keeping the pictures we really want.
Definitely, you have to move your body and be precise when taking pictures. The satisfaction? That smile on our faces with the hope of returning some day.
