[AggieDad]

...or simply shout "bear!" "bear!"...


Steve

That should get rid of most people.

On the other hand, after trips to both Alaska and Yellowstone without one single bear photo opportunity, I might run right in front of the camera and shouting, "Oh boy!"

[BruceBanner]

...or simply shout "bear!" "bear!"...


Steve

I don't think shouting 'bear' on the steps of the Sydney Opera House will do very much. Perhaps 'brown snake! brown snake!' will do more

[stevebrot]

I don't think shouting 'bear' on the steps of the Sydney Opera House will do very much. Perhaps 'brown snake! brown snake!' will do more

Ha! Ha! They being mostly tourists, "bear" might still work quite well.


Steve

[BruceBanner]

FINALLY.... got around to actually doing this! Here's the result, the blend/exposure all done in camera, but edited in post with LR and DxO FilmPack5.






The result was used taking twelve 30 second exposures using composite average mode in camera, a teeny tiny bit of cloning in PS but really it was decent as it was.

[Lambic]

Old thread, I know, but I think this is a great shot. Nice work.

Selfies were a significant problem for me in Europe last spring. You witness this terrible recurring sequence where people shoot; check result; fix hair; re-shoot; check result; adjust pose; re-shoot then spend a few more minutes posting to Instagram while still standing in front of major attraction that other people are trying to photograph! I'm going to have to try the composite average mode (not sure I have it).

[BruceBanner]

Old thread, I know, but I think this is a great shot. Nice work.

Selfies were a significant problem for me in Europe last spring. You witness this terrible recurring sequence where people shoot; check result; fix hair; re-shoot; check result; adjust pose; re-shoot then spend a few more minutes posting to Instagram while still standing in front of major attraction that other people are trying to photograph! I'm going to have to try the composite average mode (not sure I have it).

Thanks Lambic. Yeah this is going to be a problem that is only going to get worse. Only about 2-3 months ago I was listening to our local Sydney radio station talking about tourism becoming a problem worldwide. Tourism is trying to hype other lesser known attractions in their countries to try and manage the visitors but it's a very hard sale. For us photographers it will always mean getting shots at unfavourable hours or using tricks like this.

[tokyoscape]

So many good ideas already.
1. As Bob said above about going there early. I would go there very early or very late then do a combination of multiple photos to make sure I have enough photos to completely mask out people which still a lot less shot than go at normal hours. Then do A shot with a model or a person sitting.
or
2. This is just an idea of what I might do instead. I like long exposure. I can take advance of the crowd moving. Go with an ND filter or use multiple shooting features. Have your model site still and you do series of long exposure. and blend + mask them in Photoshop so you get a person sitting still in color full wave of moving crowd.

[Lambic]

So many good ideas already.
1. As Bob said above about going there early. I would go there very early or very late then do a combination of multiple photos to make sure I have enough photos to completely mask out people which still a lot less shot than go at normal hours. Then do A shot with a model or a person sitting.
or
2. This is just an idea of what I might do instead. I like long exposure. I can take advance of the crowd moving. Go with an ND filter or use multiple shooting features. Have your model site still and you do series of long exposure. and blend + mask them in Photoshop so you get a person sitting still in color full wave of moving crowd.

Early is often the best bet. The Charles Bridge in Prague - not only is it an amazing site in the early morning, you also get the bridge mostly to yourself and without all the vendors that will set up later. I didn't actually realize there were vendors until we passed back over later that afternoon. It was a completely different experience as the bridge was so crowded with tourists, locals and vendors you couldn't really see the bridge itself.

[robgski]

Great final image. There are so many features in my K-1 that I have not tried, I need to master this one.

[BruceBanner]

Going early is great, for sure, but not always possible, or perhaps you are holidaying and you have a day full of different locations, you don't have early start per destination, you have to do 4-5 in one day and thus some will be busy, it's inevitable.

Not quite the same thing, but I also did this shot recently and it was fairly busy, a 30sec exposure will also ghost people quite a fair bit;



Now this was just one frame at 30secs long. if I took 2-3 more I could perhaps have enough information to clone out the background people as well. It depends tho, sometimes long exposure is more problematic than a single take, because you get ghosts that trail as opposed to being static. If you take quick exposure shots, and enough of them, and the people move around, with enough frames you can probably clone everyone out, just takes more time in PP. The Composite Average thing is trying to do some of that leg work for you I think.

[reh321]

I just thank them for adding to the local color, and include those choose to stay. I know this is today, and I do not pretend otherwise - but that is just me.

[robgski]

There is a lot to be said for visting early, visiting during "bad" weather, and my personal favorite, visiting during the week and in the off season.

I worked in the tourist industry for a time, and have friends who still do, and I live in an area where a lot of tourists visits, so I understand somewhat the benefits and disadvantages of tourism. I try to be a low impact tourist, and try to be understanding of tourist behavior in my area. Actually, I often fall into the role of "native guide and booster" because I like meeting people, and tipping them off to the lesser-known facts and sites of a place.

[BruceBanner]

I just thank them for adding to the local color, and include those choose to stay. I know this is today, and I do not pretend otherwise - but that is just me.

Yes I quite like that too. There's no right or wrong here, just what the photographer wants to do/portray. I would like to (one day) for example, revisit the Opera House around dusk and this time us a far wider lens, capturing a lot of the circular quay (and therefore a lot more people). I would like to try a similar strategy to above, perhaps leave the camera running for a good 30-40mins and see how many tourists could be removed and additionally cloned out of that scene. It could be quite an interesting shot to see an iconic piece of architecture shot around one of the peak tourist times with actually no people in the scene, kinda 'apocalyptic' and eerie scene perhaps...

[photoptimist]

Yes I quite like that too. There's no right or wrong here, just what the photographer wants to do/portray. I would like to (one day) for example, revisit the Opera House around dusk and this time us a far wider lens, capturing a lot of the circular quay (and therefore a lot more people). I would like to try a similar strategy to above, perhaps leave the camera running for a good 30-40mins and see how many tourists could be removed and additionally cloned out of that scene. It could be quite an interesting shot to see an iconic piece of architecture shot around one of the peak tourist times with actually no people in the scene, kinda 'apocalyptic' and eerie scene perhaps...

If you collect a long stack of images, you can use what's known as a median filter across the stack. A median filter throws out all the highest & lowest values. It uses the pixel value that is brighter than the 50% of darker pixels and darker than the 50% of brighter pixels. The median is much much better than averaging for being immune to outliers (e.g. a tourist's white shirt). As long as tourists don't obscure any given spot more than 50% of the total shooting time, they should be gone.

A couple of issues make dusk and night tricky:

1) Tourist cellphones & electronics: they will be very bright in the dusk/twilight scenes

2) Sky colors: if the sky changes colors during dusk, the resulting combination can be strange. A blue sky averaged with a red sky is a magenta sky. I've no idea what the median of blue and red is but suspect it could be a strange dark magenta.

Good luck!

[35mmfilmfan]

Look up Advice to Tourists (Gerard Hoffnung) on YouTube.