Deiree A. Neville
- Sep 18, 2018
- 2 min read

What You Should Know About Selfies - Part 2

In a past blog, we learnt how to minimize the wide angle effect while taking a selfie. This time let's talk about other factors that make a big difference in your selfies - or any portrait taken with your phone -

Lighting and composition will always be the things that make or break a picture. Of course, impact plays a big role too, but I will leave that part to your imagination.

Let's talks about lighting. You've seen those photos on social media where you can barely make out someone's face because it was in the dark right? That is called backlighting. The light behind the person is brighter than the light in front of them and the camera exposes for the background because there is more of it in the picture, so the faces remain in the dark. Here are some solutions to avoid your backlit face to be in the dark in your selfies.

1 Backlighting When there is a bright light behind you, you could use the flash on the camera ( some phone flashes don't work so well) so your face does not look dark in the picture.

Solution 1 - Selfie Ring. They are little lights in a circle that clip onto your phone. They provide a more even light than a flash and add a nice catch light in the eyes-

Solution 2 - Tap on where your face is on the screen and the camera will adjust the exposure for your face. The background may get too bright but your face will be correctly exposed. And you can even go a little further and

Solution 3 - After you tap the screen, you can slide your finger up or down to adjust the exposure yourself. You will see your face light up!

2. Closeups Remember how I said the camera exposes for what occupies a bigger portion of the picture? Well, if you zoom in (with your fingers) onto your face, the exposure will adjust to how much light is on your face and not on the background.

Now let's talk about Composition: Here are some pointers that could make your selfies even better.

3. Pay attention to the background Look at the background. Is there a lot of clutter behind you? is there an object that appears to grow out of your head? Move your phone around until you see a cleaner background and make sure nothing looks like it is growing out of your head LOL!! Posing in front of clean lines will put all the attention on you.

4. Compose, frame and look at the camera. When you are happy with the composition and your expression, don't forget to look at the little camera, instead of yourself on the screen before you take the picture.

Happy shooting! Check below for some resources I collected for you :)

Go out and try some of these tricks! Have fun and tell me how you did in the comments!! Happy shooting!