Self-Portraits (Part II)

After our last post showing how skilled we (mostly Ali) are at taking pictures of ourselves, whether by tripod or arm-extension, we received a few comments asking us to ask others to take pictures of us. It's not that we refuse to do it, we've just run into a few problems with people who apparently have never seen a camera before.

At the Roman Forum, we asked a nice lady to take a picture of us. I think she was from Germany. Perhaps somewhere in Eastern Europe. She was very kind and did her best, but seemed to miss the point that we wanted a picture to show that we were actually at the Roman Forum.


She seemed to think that we wanted a picture commemorating the fact that we in fact exist and do not mind standing next to each other.

Then today in Barcelona we reached the very top of Parc Guell with a sweeping 180+ degree view of the waterfront and the city. We asked a nice young lady to take a picture of us. She skipped over the requisite "Just push the button?" question and went straight for the shot. She then asked if it took, and upon checking I realized it had not. Yet despite this warning and the fact she seemed to be aiming over our heads, we let her continue.



She opted for the disembodied heads levitating over the city photo. Unlike the lady taking the picture at the Forum, this girl apparently thought we wanted our heads to not to be a distraction from the beauty that is Barcelona. At the very least, I feel like it gave me a great idea to cut out the messy part of traveling by superimposing our floating heads on pictures of famous panoramic views.

In all fairness, we are very grateful for the help of people, some of whom go out of their way to offer and most of whom to a very good job. But it's always awkward when you don't like the picture that came out and have to either ask for another or move on. Most of the time, we know what we are looking for better than the person who is taking it. The tripod and timer help us set it up. Sometimes we end up in mistiming it or in awkward poses and with the frame a little tilted, but we're usually pretty happy with the results.