Ideas for Photographing Interesting and Creative Self-portraits

Even the most talented photographers have trouble capturing the perfect self-portrait. As someone who is often critical about your artistic skills, photographing yourself combines that with any insecurities you may have about your appearance or affect in an image. How can you make sure your ideas come across in your work when you’re both in front of and behind the camera? Here are some ideas for creating the perfect self-portrait for your purpose.

Experiment With Close-ups

Do you have a feature you’d like to feature? Try getting closer to the camera and highlighting a definite part of your face that you want viewers to notice. If you want to focus on your mouth and chin, apply some medicated lip balm and start snapping photos.

Show Your Real Life in Your Portrait

You could snap yourself staring into the camera lens with a pensive look on your face, or you could capture a true portrait of yourself doing the things that make up your daily existence. Tell the story of who you really are by shooting yourself playing with your child, reading a book or preparing a meal.

Include Your Pet

When you want to see who people really are, watch them interact with the animals they love. If you want an honest and authentic portrait, invite your dog to sit in with you. You may not get a perfect or serious shot because you’ll be distracted by your squirmy best friend’s antics, but you’ll probably get some great shots of your playful, loving and laughing faces.

Avoid Busy Backgrounds

If the point of a self-portrait is to capture your own essence, then you want to be the focus of the photo. Therefore, you’ll want to avoid backgrounds with distracting shapes or contrasting colors that can take the emphasis away from the focal point. Consider clean, solid backdrops so you can put the attention where it should be—on you!

Embrace Multiple Interpretations

You are a complex, multidimensional being and as such, you may have trouble deciding which portrait of yourself to share with the world. Luckily, you aren’t limited to just one photo. You can create collages to help you tell your story, where also have the freedom to explore different angles, framing and lighting choices.

Use a Tripod

A self-portrait is different from a selfie. For a quick social media post, it may be okay to snap a shot with your arms stretched out in front of you in the frame. However, for a professional-grade quality photo, you should consider setting your DSLR up on a tripod so you can bring your hands back into the story.

If you don’t have a tripod, you can create a makeshift one by propping your camera up on a table or some books stacked to the desired height.

Invest in a Flip Screen Camera

As both the subject and the photographer, it can be tedious to go back and forth trying to set up the perfect shot. If you don’t have any tether tools, it’s frustrating when you can’t see what’s happening in real-time. To capture the image you want in a timely manner, you can utilize a camera with a flip screen. Which allows you to view the shots as you would if you were snapping a different model.

Capture Your Reflection

If you want an unconventional self-portrait to show off your beauty as well as your mad camera skills, try shooting your reflection. Don’t just aim the lens at your bathroom mirror, though. While you can have a lot of fun playing with mirror imaging techniques in photography, you can also get really creative by looking for other reflective surfaces like windows or puddles to add a bit of drama and mystery to your piece.

Don’t let your anxiety about shooting yourself prevent you from creating beautiful images as well as memories. Whatever your vision for your self-portrait, using these tips can help you achieve it and grow as an artist.