Let alone including yourself in the picture. I know how you look like.
Let alone including your loved ones in the picture.
Even when their disappointment of having to face away from the monument is clearly visible in the photo.
And then you make them do stuff like ‘hold the sun in your hands’ or whatever.
As a (as of yet) nonprofessional photographer I take a “yes, and” approach.
99.98% of people will just take a picture of the thing and move on.
0.001% of people will say, “What’s the point? I can just look up the picture on Wikipedia.”
What do I like to do? I like to take a picture of the thing, but tell a story surrounding it. Is there a mom with a cell phone grinning seeing her kids run around the statue? Take a picture of the moment. Is there a couple with their arms wrapped around each other? Such a precious photo.
This can also help show scale. When I visited a volcano in my area that’s a tourist trap, most people stand at the viewpoint, and take a picture of the gray and brown bump on the horizon with steam coming out. But I purposefully tried to get people in the shot. The result showed how impressive the volcano truly was.
This dude arts!