Here’s the Lighthouse, here’s the People... oh wait... where did they all go?

 OK, so I’ve talked about this before of how challenging it is to do landscape photography while traveling without getting all kinds of people in the shot. It’s nearly impossible. I showed how in France we can go to a different part of a church entrance that is closed to capture the architecture, but what do you do when that’s not a solution. 

While in Kauai on the north shore we were visiting the Kilauea Lighthouse. It was beautiful, jutting out of the coast to that deep blue ocean. There was only one problem, people and lots of them. 


I absolutely loved this shot (even if it was shot mid afternoon) but  I didn’t really want all those people. So what is a photographer to do?  Well this is where patience and a small amount of photoshop skills come in to make the final image. 

In Photoshop we have a number of tools to help us solve this kind of problem. But you have to zoom with up (in some cases where you’re working so zoomed up you’re looking at individual pixels, the individual parts of the sensor that make the image). You can use spot healing tools, context fill and cloning tools to make those pesky people “vanish” in thin air. 

Is it difficult?  Not really. Does it take some time?  Absolutely.  You have to really want to do it to make it worth the time. For this image it took me about an hour to get to the final image I wanted. 


Which do you think is better?  Was it worth it?  I’d love to know what you think! 

Have a great week! 

Next week:  how to do those photographers get the sun to make a starburst?  

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