Over the weekend I challenged myself to take self portraits and let me tell you I’m pretty happy with the results!
I am creating this to help you take beautiful photos of yourself or your family (as well as get those Mother’s Day photos for all those Momma’s out there). At the core of who I am I love all those family moments and with COVID-19 it has really hurt my photographer (and Momma) heart to think of all those precious moments that families and photographers are missing out on. That is why I am sitting here writing this blog post.
To start there is a simple list of things you will need to be able to take self portraits:
- Camera (or phone)
- Tripod
- Remote (or self-timer on camera)
The Steps to Take:
1. Find the natural light! If you are outside, find a shaded area. This will help make the lighting in the photo even. This can be shade from a tree or building (in my case a barn).
2. Set up the tripod and camera.
3. When looking through the viewfinder remove any distracting objects (in my case the dogs kept getting in the way).
4. When focusing the camera, find something you can use as the focus (if there is more than one person in the photo use them as the focus point). Since I did self portraits I used a yellow pole to set my focus and moved the tripod over so that it was out of the shot (this also helped me know where to stand to get photos in focus).
5. Take a test shot to make sure everything looks good in the frame.
6. For this step there are TWO different options you can choose:
- Set up the remote at the 2-second delay option (hide remote behind someone)
- Or use the self-timer function on your camera (this is on the phone camera too!!).
I have done it both ways and below are some examples.
The family photo was taken with the self-timer from my camera and my self portrait photo was taken with a remote (see the remote in my left hand??).
7. Get yourself or everyone else into their positions and start clicking away to get those precious moments!
