How to take a picture of yourself for your blog

When I started writing For Love or Funny, I balked at the idea of posting a picture of myself. I wanted to stay cloaked in anonymity, mostly because I have huge teeth. But as I started reading other blogs, I realized that I was drawn to ones that had great writing, vivid photography, or a personality that I really liked. If they had all three, I couldn’t get enough of them.

I took a hard look at For Love Or Funny, and I concluded that I had to offer a little bit more information about myself if I wanted to start building a more personal connection with my online friends. I needed a picture, pronto!

I thought about asking my husband or a friend to take my picture, but I feel goofy posing for pictures. Besides, I’ve taken thousands of pictures of other people…why couldn’t I take a picture of myself? After some experimentation, here’s what worked for me:

You need: a tripod, a digital camera, and a mirror.

I found that I had the best luck keeping my shots in focus if I shot into a mirror. I ended up taking my picture in the bathroom, because our bathroom mirrors are huge – big enough to accommodate huge teeth. I discovered that if I kept my face even with the camera, that helped me stay in focus. In the picture above, I stood in front of a white door, because I wanted to have a white background once I cropped the picture around my head. Remember that if you’re shooting a “head shot,” make sure the background doesn’t take any attention away from your face.

Don’t try holding the camera in your hands, because you’ll likely end up with a blurry photo. To increase your chances of getting a sharp photograph, plop your camera on a tripod in order to keep it as steady as possible. Don’t have a tripod? That’s okay; you can prop it on a stack of books, or a small book shelf, or a step ladder. Whatever works!

Special note: If you’re taking a photo for your blog, try to dress in colors that complement your blog’s colors.

Try to take the picture near a window with natural light.

In this picture, I used a mirror next to a window. The light was so good that I didn’t need to use my flash. By and large, I dislike using my flash. It washes the color out of everything and makes people look goofy, and I look goofy enough without a flash, thank you very much. By the way, my tripod is out of view (to the left of the mirror), but I aimed the camera so that it was looking into the mirror. In addition, I propped a screen up behind me for a patterned background that complemented the warm colors I wore.

Experiment, Download, and Try Again!

You are going to take loads of bad pictures. Keep checking the digital screen on the back of your camera to make sure you like where you stand. Once you find a good position, take a number of shots. Be sure to stop often, download your pictures to your computer, and check them out. I was surprised at how many of my photos looked great in my camera’s preview screen, but once I downloaded them to my computer and looked at them, many were out of focus and unusable.

I tried using the shutter’s timer function on my camera, but I found that my expressions were more natural if I just depressed the shutter by hand. I didn’t really worry about sticking my arm out to depress the shutter, because I knew I’d be cropping the photo anyway.

Do this at home when you’re alone!

You are going to look, and sound, like a crazy person while you are taking pictures of yourself. It’s less embarrassing if you tackle this project when no one else is around to laugh at you. Try different poses. Take pictures while you are talking or singing. Shoot from various angles. The more pictures you take in different poses, the better chance you’ll have of finding a shot that’s in focus, captures your personality, and hides your turkey neck.

I was surprised at how long it took me to get a couple of good pictures of myself, so make sure you give yourself one or two hours without interruption when you try this. It’ll be worth it, I promise!

Photoshop is your friend

It’s amazing what a little cropping can do! Once you find a photo that you like, go ahead and play around with the color levels. Edit it and see what you come up with. From the above photo, I played around with it on Photoshop, cropped it, and got a decent head shot:

So go ahead and take a picture of yourself!
Use it for your blog, share it with your kids, and give it as a gift!

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We like you, and we want to see your picture!

Tagged as: blogging