How to Take Amazing Self-Portraits on Your Smartphone

Now that springtime is near, it’s slowly starting to get darker much later than in the wintertime. This is great if you want to actually catch golden hour without having to rush to take photos whether it be selfies or flat lays. Today I want to talk about taking self-portraits on your smartphone which can be pretty tricky to pose for. You can check out an older blog post of mine where I show you how to pose for photos if you’re interested. Keep reading if you want to see how I take and pose for self-portraits that look professional and moody AF.

Before I get to the posing tips, I briefly want to talk about equipment. Don’t worry, it’s not much; all you really need is a smartphone tripod. You can purchase really affordable ones on Amazon. My tripod came with a remote control that connected through Bluetooth, but of course, I misplaced it. I ended up having to use the timer mode, which I actually don’t mind because you have time to figure out a good pose and you don’t have to worry about where to hide the shutter release.

You can take pictures any time of the day, but golden-hour and overcast days are by far the best times to take self-portraits. I can’t stress enough how important lighting is when taking photos but especially photos on your smartphone and even more so if you’re using your front-facing camera. If the lighting is bad or off, your photo WILL come out grainy and low quality no matter what high-speed phone you have. Filters and camera settings can only do so much.

When I’m taking these self-portraits, I like to put my camera on Portrait Mode on the front-facing camera. I do this because it takes one really good picture instead of ten, just decent pictures. The only issue with this mode is that you probably won’t get a good full body picture. However, I will cover full body poses and pictures in a later blog post. Anywho, I can be very awkward when figuring out how to pose but over the past few months, I think I’ve gotten so much better.

So far you’ve seen a few of my poses and you might have seen a common theme. What are my hands doing? They’re in my hair, above my head or at my sides. Hands and arms are always super awkward when taking self-portraits – especially for someone who has long arms like me. I always try to put them in very natural positions but make it a little dramatic. My favorite is putting my hands in my hair because that’s something I would do naturally if I was just standing around. But like I said, make it dramatic. Another favorite is hands near my face or clasped together at the heart’s center  – another natural position.

I don’t know what it was but when I used to take photos of myself, I would always make some strange face or look like a deer caught in headlights. What I did to remedy this problem, was relax my face as much as possible. Looking completely blank is better than looking constipated. Once your face is relaxed you can work from there. One of my favorite face poses is an ever so slightly open mouth or just let your bottom lip droop a little and open your eyes a little more. This allows you to look more sultry than blank or angry. I also avoid looking directly into the camera as well, but this is just a preference of mine.

The last tip is just a bonus. Fill up your frame and don’t worry if you cut off a body part. I take a lot of pictures of myself with the top part of my face cut off. Also, use your surroundings – lean on the wall, grab a banister, pick a flower, you get the gist. Get creative with your poses and angles and try out different lighting situations. I hope this was helpful for those who want to get out of a rut when taking photos of themselves. Leave a comment and tell me what photo tip was your favorite.