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Where’s a seagull when you need one?

I went down to Brighton last weekend and, as on many other visits there, I found myself drawn to the seagulls. They are great majestic animals and their sleek grace seems to add a touch of melancholy to any seaside image. The Hipstamatic John S Lens and the Ina’s 1982 film also seemed to work well with the mood. But it’s quite difficult to get a shot of one just where you want him. Standing on one of the piers, I lined up quite a nice composition of the beach and the waves coming into shore. All I needed was a seagull to complete the picture. And as they swooped overhead, they seemed to be taunting me: yeah, we know that shot, you just want us to fly in front of you so you can get your cool seaside shot, don’t you. Yeah, right. I got a couple of close-ups of the blighters in the sky, but none in that killer position inside the frame.

But not so fast Mr Seagull, I thought. I have Image Blender on my side. I put the shot of the seagull in the air on top of the the beach image, deleted all the sky around the seagull and, kiss me quick, we have our perfect shot. (The steps to do that are: choose the beach photo as your left photo, choose the seagull photo on the right; tap bottom right and choose Mask; delete everything around the seagull (zoom up for the details); click Use; move the slider to the far right and Save).

Blender is used by some amazing artists to create some stunning surreal images. But you can also use it as a simple tool (as I did in another blog) for putting that seagull just where you want it.

Here’s the seagull (rotated in the final version)