The grand landscapes of Ansel Adams generally do not include tourists in the foreground gawking at the spectacle along with Ansel. That 8” x 10” film was pricey so he had to be rather picky about subject matter. A click away with a digital camera, so we can afford to experiment. Including human subjects lends scale to the scenes, gives cues to the era, and tells more about what it was like to have been at the place. Moreover, tourists are preoccupied so they tend not to care if they happen to be in your pictures.

Recently I visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona. The Chapel is perched well up on the side of one of the red rock mesas that surround Sedona. It’s a splendid location that draws many visitors. I concentrated on the landscapes, but decided to try capturing a few photos with people in them.

To include people in stitched panoramas, the people cannot be in the overlap between the two frames or there is likely to be a problem with the stitching. The people move between images so the frames are not identical in the region of overlap. For horizontal stitching, the trick is to find a gap in the crowd and frame the images so as to allow stitching in the gap. Vertically stitched panoramas are easier, just make sure one of the frames has no people in it.

Here are two frames I planned to stitch:

The lower edge of the top frame is just above the heads of the small crowd. My objective was to show the height of the cliff relative to the crowd. so all I needed was a little sky above the cliff.

The photos were pretty much straight, although I darkened the concrete deck so it would be less prominent in competition with the rocks.

Next I tried overlapping tourist activities with the scenery. I cropped about 15% off the left and bottom sides in this image.

The image obeys my “fill the frame with stuff” dictate. There is a lot happening to entertain the viewer.

The Chapel is behind the viewpoint of the rock image, above, and it is to the right of the second view. The view inside the chapel demanded another stitched panorama. Again the upper frame was above the crowd. I lightened the shadows after stitching. The people help establish the size of the Chapel and its window.

So tourists are not all bad. You may find yourself being one of them.