Portrait photography
Self-portrait photography: how to photograph yourself properly
Put the camera on something solid two metres away, use the timer or a phone as a remote, focus on a stand-in object where your head will be, and turn…
Portrait photography
Put the camera on something solid two metres away, use the timer or a phone as a remote, focus on a stand-in object where your head will be, and turn…
In short: Put the camera on something solid two metres away, use the timer or a phone as a remote, focus on a stand-in object where your head will be, and turn towards a window. The distance is the part that matters most — it is what separates a self-portrait from a selfie.
A phone at arm's length enlarges whatever is nearest the lens, which is your nose, and narrows everything behind it. Two metres back with the camera zoomed removes that entirely. This single change accounts for most of the difference between a self-portrait that looks like you and one that does not.
Three reliable methods. Put an object — a bottle, a cushion, a lamp — where your head will be and focus on that, then switch to manual focus so it stops hunting. Or use eye-detection autofocus, which most current cameras and phones have and which tracks you as you move. Or stop down to f/5.6, which gives enough depth of field to forgive small errors.
Stand facing a window, or at 45 degrees to it for shape. Turn the room lights off — mixing a warm bulb with daylight produces the orange-and-blue skin tone that is hard to fix afterwards. If the light is hard, hang a white sheet over the window and it becomes a softbox.
Set a ten-second timer with a burst of five frames, or use the phone-as-remote app your camera came with. Then move: step in, turn out, look away, adjust a sleeve, sit down. Shoot far more than feels sensible — a hundred frames producing three good ones is a normal ratio and it is the same ratio professionals work at.
Reviewing after every frame. It breaks the rhythm and it makes you self-conscious for the next twenty. Shoot a full sequence, then look — and if you can, look the next day rather than the same evening.
Camera two metres away on something solid, zoom rather than wide, timer or remote, window light with the room lights off, and keep moving between frames.
Focus on an object placed where your head will be and switch to manual focus, or use eye-detection autofocus, or stop down to f/5.6 for margin.
No — a shelf, a stack of books or a windowsill works. What matters is that the camera is stable and far enough away.
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