If you’ve ever seen a selfie, you’ve seen someone portraying a version of themselves to the world. Chances are, if the selfie was good and taken correctly, you came away with helpful knowledge about the person in the photo.
These selfie-taking tips will give you the extremely authentic, most creative selfies you have taken in a while.
Review a step to step guide to learn how to take a good selfie for self-expression.
1. Use The Right Lighting
This is a common rule: lighting is key to photography. Every perfect image has a story, and for that story to be seen properly, there has to be just the right amount of brightness and hue.
Look at your throwbacks, for example. And I mean throwbacks from 6 – 7 years ago.
What is your reaction? Do you cringe or aw? I am guessing cringe. Throwbacks almost always have the 17th-century standard blurriness, and this is a result of poor lightning.
When people take pictures with adequate light, their good features are flattered.
To achieve that perfect Instagram standard selfie, you just need the accurate amount of lightning and positioning too.
The quality and position of light surely affect the turnout of photos. Please note that your light source can be either natural or artificial.
Whether it is light from the Sun or a chandelier, it would do. You should be slightly off from your light source. Staying directly under the light would leave shadows and darken your photos.
If you use an iPhone, using the HDR feature is a good idea. The HDR feature keeps ugly shadows away and makes sure the lighting blends in perfectly.
2. Understand Your Face Symmetry
Everyone’s face has symmetry. While some people’s faces are completely symmetrical, or at least more titled to being symmetrical, others are a bit more asymmetrical.
Understanding your facial symmetry helps you position your face properly and helps your angles come out just fine.
Take a selfie against the symmetry of your face, and you will likely have a crooked image. But even this can be improved by flipping the image horizontally.
I will speak more about image editing in the later parts of this article.
Read: How to Be Pretty: 10 Tips on Becoming Prettier
3. The Right Angle Matters
Angles greatly influence photos. Rather than the basic with the head-on smile at the camera, which can be cool sometimes, play around and show some creativity by tilting either your face or the camera. The wrong angle could make a pretty face look not so good and vice versa.
Know and own your good side—this is made possible and easier when you understand your facial symmetry.
If you think a side of your face looks better, then yeah, by all means, take a selfie of that part of your face.
Position your camera properly. It should be above your head, slightly above the eyes. Too high, and you’d look weird.
Tip: you could take a selfie before in a mirror. Mirror selfies are exciting, and the angles are always on point.
4. Stare at the camera
The models don’t leave the runway to go walk in a vegetable bush, do they? The runway is their stage. That is where they strut. The same thing applies when taking selfies. You are the centrepiece. The one all the camera focus is on. Look at it.
Read: 10 Things Men Find Beautiful In Women
5. Smile
Smiles are contagious in a strikingly good way. Have you had a cute child smile at you? What did you feel? Your viewers will feel the same way if you smile at them.
You’d definitely look more charming in that photo when you take it with a smile on. Not only would your smile make you look like the charm, but it can also affect your mood.
A good smile can trigger responses in the body that make us feel a lot better than we currently feel.
Be sure that your smile isn’t forced. You sure would look creepy with a forced, robotic smile. A forced smile is easily spotted, and your picture may not have as many likes as it should with one on.
You can either smile with teeth or without teeth. Depending on what you want. A full-teeth smile should have your lips spread out.
Get your glow on.
6. Let Your Picture Tell a Story
Photos are a great way to communicate. Of course, they connect you and your viewer for a moment. Emotions could be felt across great distances. You could share messages of goodwill, joy, romance, and happy times through your picture.
You could sell your business with a simple selfie. Tell who you are and how you are what you are.
Photographs capture and keep memories. Freeze them in time.
Your pictures shouldn’t be basic and without substance. They should have an essence. The art of storytelling isn’t always expressed in words. It can be photographed too!
Let your selfie show your mood.
Read: How to Go Out Alone and Not feel Awkward About It
7. Unawares Might Be Cool
Unaware pictures are often considered the realest photos. They make the best impression too. With unaware pictures, airs associated with posing might not be necessary.
Leave the basics and try the unusual. We know you’re supposed to look at the camera and all, but hey. A little unconventionality would not injure you. Those eye-on-the-camera selfies are sure to get old and boring.
8. The confidence badge is a must-have
What do you see when you first look at Da Vinci’s Monalisa? I see a confident woman staring back at the world with no fear whatsoever.
Those eyes keep you hooked and locked within their depths. Those eyes have been stared back at by a gazillion persons. Almost everyone has had the same feeling at first glance.
Looking good and feeling good are two sides of a coin. One just has to be on either side.
You needn’t be ridiculously bold like a nightclub bouncer. Just feel good. You could give yourself affirmations to help set the mood.
Look like a million bucks, but if you don’t feel like it, it won’t count. Your energy is an aura that is sure to flow to your viewer.
Confidence is built and worked on. Work on yours.
Read: 10 Things Guys Secretly Love
9. Practice
Yup. You read that right. Taking pictures is an art and a skill, and like everything else, it can be learned.
Play around with your camera, and you don’t know what you might just find.
Practice can lead you to perfection. With constant practice, every new selfie would be better than the last one.
You could also watch videos and tutorials on how to take your selfies to an entirely different level of amazing.
10. Proper Editing is A Must
Hold up. You’ve tried out these tips and have gotten your dream selfie, yeah? Before hitting the post button, you might just want to edit your photo. When you edit your pictures, you can attain picture perfect.
You can do these by editing the following:
• Smoothen out roughness and acne
• Enhance lighting and saturation. Curves and edges too!
• Correct colors
• Crop
• Remove dark shadows
They’re so many exciting things to discover. Find them out.
