Mastering a great selfie isn’t as easy as it seems. If you’ve ever tried it, you know that it takes at least 20 (usually more) takes to get the “perfect” one. While I can’t tell you how to get a great selfie on the first try, I can give you a few tips to make it easier to achieve it. This was a post that was requested from me which is why I decided to share some of my tips. Now, I know most people don’t care for a perfect picture and think going through all of these steps to achieve it is kind silly, many of us who are in social media or blogging know that it’s pretty important and those are the people these tips are for so I hope they help. I’m not aiming for a perfect selfie because none of us are perfect, but rather a great selfie that will accentuate the best of us.
Lighting – Lighting is everything when it comes to taking a good selfie. It can make or break it, and even though you can edit the lighting in the picture after the fact, there’s no comparing that to a photo taken with good lighting. The best light is natural light that comes from outside directly or through a window. Always look for this light when taking a selfie. Make sure that the light is hitting your face directly because if it’s behind you, it’ll create the opposite of what you want and the picture will come out super dark. In the picture above with natural lighting, I took several pictures facing different directions until I found where the natural light hit me the best, and then took the picture. Another alternative is artificial light such as the Lumee phone case which comes with a light integrated in its case, the flashlight from someone else’s phone directly on your face or even the front facing flash on your phone if yours has that feature is the second best. The second picture above was taken with artificial light inside while the light was hitting my face directly.
Angle – You don’t just take a picture and hope for the best. You need to find an angle that won’t make you look like you have a double chin. The best angle for the phone is upward and further away from your face. The closer you have the phone to your face, the bigger your face will look and the more it will accentuate whatever it is you don’t want to accentuate. Keep it at a certain distance and angle the phone slightly higher than your face, but not too high because then it can make your head look super big. Keeping it at a slightly higher angle, slims your face and avoids the double chin. Never take the picture from a downward angle because you won’t get a double chin, but a triple chin, and nobody wants that. Refer to both pics above and notice how the pictures weren’t taken directly in front of my face but rather slightly higher.
Pose – Pose is different from angle. You need to play around and find the pose that best suits you. For some people, taking a face front picture makes them look great, for others it’s from their right side, and for others it’s from their left side. For example, my left side is my good side. You will rarely see me take a picture from my right side or from the front. I don’t like the way my nose looks in a front facing picture and by taking it like that, it accentuates more what I don’t like about it, and if I smile, it makes it look more obvious so I avoid them unless it’s from far away or I have my sunglasses or glasses on. My right side just doesn’t look as great as my left side so I stick to always taking the picture from my left side. Take pictures from all sides, look at them and find which one looks best & stick to that. In the first picture above, a front facing picture not smiling is pretty much the only way I’ll take it since it doesn’t accentuate what I don’t like. Many women like taking pictures not smiling because they feel if they do, it accentuates their laugh lines and/or wrinkles. I’m not one of them. My smile is one of my best features (as I’ve been told) so I always smile in my pictures. Besides, I’m a very happy person so I like my pictures to reflect that. The second one is a rare photo of me smiling while front facing the camera, and I only did it because the filter I applied didn’t accentuate what I don’t like that much. Still not one of my favorite pictures.
Apps – Once you’ve taken a good selfie, you then need to edit it a little with apps. You can erase imperfections, soften your skin, and add a filter to enhance the color. The only thing to remember is to not go overboard. Go very easy with the softening effect. Some people do it way too much and they blur it so much that their nose and/or jawline disappears. The point is to lightly soften your skin, not blur it. It shouldn’t be obvious that you softened it. If it is, you did it too much. Some apps to consider and that I use are Facetune and LINE Camera. Note that in the pictures above, there are slight differences. The first one doesn’t look that different from the last. If you don’t look at it too much, you can’t tell there’s a difference. That’s the way it should be. It shouldn’t be two different people. In following my first tip mentioned, the pictures above were taken in front of a window so the natural light would hit my face.
Selfie stick – Selfie sticks can come in handy when taking a selfie of yourself in which you want to capture more of the background or when you want to take a group selfie. The only thing with this is that the selfie stick was meant to help you extend the phone further away so it can fit more into the screen, but it was not meant for the actual stick to come out in the picture. Please, please make sure the stick doesn’t come out in the picture. That defeats the purpose of it and it looks ridiculous. The stick has the feature to be tilted so use that so as to avoid the stick coming out in the selfie. If it slightly comes out in the bottom of the picture because there was no way to hide it, then crop it. Your hand holding it shouldn’t be visible either. It shouldn’t be obvious that you’re holding a selfie stick to take your picture. Same goes for when taking a selfie without a stick. Your arm/arms shouldn’t come out in the picture. Extend it/them outward so they don’t come out. All of the pictures above were taken with a selfie stick but the stick is never visible. It was used to capture more of the background; the way it’s supposed to be used. You can click on the pictures to see the full picture.
To end this post, check out this funny video my friend and I made about the making of a selfie!!
Hope these tips helped you. If you have any other tips you’d like to share, please let me know!
This is a very helpful post for us who like to take selfies! Thanks for the tips ☺