As a content creator, you know firsthand how many photos you need to take until you get the perfect shot. But asking your friends or family members to take a zillion photos of you in *slightly* different poses is somewhat uncomfortable.
I personally love to take photos of myself rather than ask people to take them for me. When I’m taking pictures on my own, I don’t feel pressured or rushed to get the shot I’m looking for, and I don’t feel bad when it takes forever.
So today, I’m sharing all my tips and tricks to take good pictures of yourself. Whether you are traveling solo, need an outfit picture or you just prefer to be in charge of your own photography, these tips will help ensure your photos look flawless and professional.
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Tips to Take Good Pictures of Yourself With a Phone or Camera
Have you ever asked yourself, “how can I be more photogenic?” These tips will not only help you look good in your photos, your confidence will radiate through once you learn to take a good selfie.
It’s also good to experiment with different angles. While one angle might work for someone else, it might not work for you. Move your camera around, have it close and far away, and try out different angles to see if you can capture the perfect selfie.
2. Use Even Lighting
Harsh shadows and highlights are not the keys to a good selfie (unless you are artistically going for something like that).
Try to get an evenly lit photo as much as possible.
3. Use Natural Lighting
Indoor lighting can cause lots of unwanted hues (such as yellow or blue) into your images. When possible, try to use natural light as often as you can. Natural light will keep your portrait photos bright, airy and beautiful.
4. Keep Composition in Mind
When taking your photo yourself, you’ll want to be mindful of where you are positioned! Generally, you can’t go wrong with the rule of thirds, in otherwise, positioning yourself off-center.
The rule of thirds divides photos up into 9 sections vertically and horizontally.
When planning the composition of your photo, arrange the main subject to take up space in any of the outer squares. The dog in the photo below has been perfectly framed using the rule of thirds! Try this the next time your taking pictures of yourself.
5. Avoid the Front Camera (on Phones)
The front camera on your phone is disorting your face and if you’ve ever wondered why you might look different in the mirror than you do when you open up your phone’s front camera, it’s because of the lens and perspective distortion.
When possible, you should use the back camera on your phone. The easiest way to use the back camera is to use a mirror. Hold your phone up in front of the mirror so you can make sure your face is in the shot.
6. Find Somewhere to Place Your Camera
There are two different ways you can take good pictures of yourself:
- with a tripod
- without a tripod
Using a Tripod
If you want to take full-body pictures of yourself, you’ll need a tripod.
There are different types of tripods you can get depending on the content you plan to shoot and what camera you’ll be using.
I’m going to talk about two different ones in particular that I think are super useful for bloggers and small business owners who want to take Instagram photos by themselves.
The first one is a smaller tripod with bendy legs that can attach to different objects.
If you plan to use a phone, you can consider a smaller tripod like this one which also comes with a remote so you don’t need to rely on your self-timer.
The bendy legs give you the ability to get really creative where this guy goes!
Although that one does have the ability to put a camera on it, I wouldn’t risk putting anything heavier than my iPhone on something so small.
For a camera, a regular tripod will do the trick!
You can use the free Photoshop app for your phone if you want to create fun images.
Without Using a Tripod
You can still take pictures of yourself without a tripod, but I don’t always recommend this method.
If you are taking photos at home, you can place your camera on a ledge and feel confident that it won’t come crashing down and shatter.
But if you are out in public…I do not recommend this.
A sudden burst of wind may cause your device to pull a humpty-dumpty and have a great fall.
Proceed with caution if you choose to use a ledge outdoors!
Another simple solution is to use a selfie-stick. I know—selfie sticks have bad reps—but they are quite helpful if you prefer to hold the camera rather than set it on a ledge.
7. Get a Camera That Connects to Your Phone
While the self-timer is a great feature, having a camera with that connects to your phone is a game-changer if you want to take pictures of yourself that look like they were taken by a photographer.
Here’s how a self-timer works: you place the camera somewhere (whether on a surface or on a tripod), you set the self-timer for five seconds, you run into place, your camera takes the photo, and then you run back to check the photo to make sure you were in the frame (and likely do this many more times until you get the shot you want).
This process is a bit clunky and wastes lots of time!
Especially if you are taking photos of yourself in public spaces where you want to get a picture as quickly as possible.
The solution is to find a camera that can connect to your phone. When your camera connects to your phone, you’ll be able to snap the photos through your phone AND see exactly how the photo looks on your phone. I have been using the Fujifilm X-T10 for years now and absolutely love it because it has this feature.
On top of the amazing quality of photos that I get with the FujiFilm X-T10, it also has WiFi. So instead of setting a self-timer and running back and forth to see whether I got the shot, I can hook my camera up to my phone (even if I’m in a place where there is no WiFi or data) and I can actually see what my camera sees on my phone!
I took this photo of myself using the Fujifilm camera app:
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