In yesterday’s post, I introduced our next tourist destination, the world-famous Arc de Triomphe. Those pictures showed considerable visual clutter surrounding the structure, both people and automobiles. It was impossible to get a clean architecture-only photo at the time. An early morning attempt might yield clean, clutter-less images — something I didn’t do.

This photo shows a straightforward way to get people out of the frame. It captures most of the monument and its intricate carvings. To best pull this off, I opted for a symmetrical composition — simple and powerful. However, creating such a shot is more complicated than you can imagine — especially handheld.

The resulting image is near-perfect — a combination of close enough framing and tweaks done in post-processing. However, to make it perfect, you need to be absolutely perpendicular and level to the structure. Something that I find challenging despite all my practice. I suppose the image is good enough for most people.

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