This edition of BoothbayRegister/Wiscasset Newspaper is chock full of people photos. Scenics and other photos all have their place, depending on the story. But the people photo is perhaps most important to reflecting and recording the nation, a town, and sometimes a town’s relationship with its nation.

So how to take a people pic in a pandemic? Very carefully. Masks are a must for everyone’s safety and, due to masks, more photos are sometimes needed to ensure you get the remaining expressive part of the face, other than the head’s position: The eyes.

The other wrinkle the pandemic poses for photographers is social distancing; again, needed for safety, so no argument here. But it fills the frame with background that sometimes is not as eye-catching as the photo’s somewhat distant subject, the person.

Thank goodness for cropping, lopping off some or all a photo’s edges. Higher skilled photographers than I have their lenses and they know how to use them. For ease and speed in getting a photo online, I’ve learned to rely wholly on the smartphone. So for me, cropping saves the day. The people get to really fill the frame with only as much background as I want, just as it was before social distancing was a thing. 

That feels like a long time ago.

So when you see our relative closeups these days, please know we are keeping our social distances, and compensating with technology to give you the best possible photos of you, yours and everyone else who makes our towns hum.