In a selfie, you want to look your very best. Learning how to take great selfies is not difficult if you follow these best selfie poses.
Even the best Instagram models at one time didn’t have an idea of how to take a good selfie; they all had to practice to make perfect selfie poses. This, coupled with a little confidence is all you need to take breathtaking photos. Here are 10 head-turning selfie poses that will light up your Instagram.
Best Selfie Poses
- Pose With A Partner
- Two Handed Selfie
- Birds Eye View
- Zoom In
- Pout
- Mirror Selfie
- Using Accessories
- Looking Up
- Side Selfie
- Chin Down
The Rule of Thirds
Don’t panic just yet, this has nothing to do with geometry or mathematics. Well, it actually does a little. The rule of thirds is simply a technique in photography whereby the visual appeal of composition is enhanced by strategically aligning the main element of the composition asymmetrically along imaginary grid lines while still balancing the general appeal of the composition.
Simply put, you can take your selfie in such a way that your face or body, which is the primary element, covers a third or the picture while other elements occupy the rest of the picture. This will make sure that your face or body remains the focus of the picture while still showcasing other elements of the picture Selfie Poses.
Best Selfie Poses With A Partner
Selfie poses with your partner can add real emotion into your selfie pictures. Cameras have the ability to show more than just a flat picture, they can capture the essence of your feelings.
Use partner selfies to capture your most powerful pictures, that will capture the moment forever.
Two-handed Selfie Poses
A two-handed selfie is just that. A selfie taken with both hands. With a two-handed selfie, your two hands will serve as a frame for your face. Normally, you would take one-handed selfie poses and this proves to be tricky a lot of the time.
If you are not a pro, it is difficult finding the perfect selfie angle and your face might end up looking like a moose (no offense, I like moose, just not on my face). A two-handed selfie will help you balance your face out for the perfect selfie pose.
Birds Eye View Selfie Poses
Like the chin down pose, this pose also tends to elongate your face a bit, giving you a hands-free KK contour. To take a bird’s eye view selfie, a selfie stick will work best, but you can also use your free hand. If you are using a selfie stick, it is as simple as mounting your phone on the selfie stick and taking a normal selfie stick selfie.
Only this time focusing more on your face or upper body. You can adjust the selfie stick as desired depending on whether you want a full body selfie, upper body selfie or a portrait selfie.
Zoom in
A crop or zoom-in selfie is a selfie taken with your face all up on the camera lens. Sometimes, the background can be distracting or unappealing. This is a selfie best taken if you don’t want the background to show in the picture.
You can use your phone camera settings to do the zooming for you or you can put your camera lens as close to your face as possible so that your face covers pretty much the whole picture. While doing this, you need to angle your face appropriately so that you do more good to your face than bad. I’m saying this because a typical zoom in any picture is not usually the best.
Pout
Nothing screams selfie like a little pout. A selfie pout will not only bring out your goofiness but will also make you look cute. You can do a full on pout or do a subtle pout to make your lips look bigger and cuter. A pout also plays with your face contouring to make it look thinner and your cheekbones stand out; or make non-existent cheekbones existent.
That’s the power of a pout! To make a perfect pout selfie, all you need to do is put your lips together, move them forward in a kissing fashion and broaden them a little. This will not only make your lips appear bigger but will also give you a cute goofy face.
Mirror Selfie Poses
Mirror selfies have been trending for long now. People often take mirror selfies if they want to take a full body picture but don’t have anyone to take the photo for them.
To take a mirror selfie, you need to stand in front of a mirror, either full body size or a small wall mirror and take a picture of yourself in the mirror. There are various ways to make your mirror selfies better such as keeping your phone from obstructing your view and angling your phone differently.
Side Selfie Poses
Who said a selfie had to be taken facing forward? Side selfies look much better compared to front selfies. While it might be a little tricky to take a side selfie, once you figure it out, you will have so much fun taking side selfies.
A side view selfie is taken posing with one side of your face or your body. You can spice it up a little by tilting your head backward to make your neck appear longer. Another tidbit is also to make your chin meet your left or right shoulder as if shrugging.
Introduce Other Elements In Your Selfie Poses
If striking a pose is not your forte, there are many ways you can enhance your selfie; such as introducing another element in the picture. A good, example, if you are a lady, is to add a flower on your hair or cove your lips with it.
Looking up
A selfie looking up is another cool way you can enhance the appearance of your selfie. To take a selfie looking up, all you have to do is, well, look up. Of course, you will have to add some pizzazz to the photo but the aim is to make you look like the photo was taken unawares. If you are camera shy, with such a selfie, you will feel at ease because you are not necessarily facing the camera. The camera can sometimes make you a little nervous and you wouldn’t know how to behave. This pose is perfect if you are camera shy.
If a pose will not cut it for you, there are always other ways you can enhance your photos to make them pop. One of the ways you can enhance your photos is through photoshopping and adding filters.
Chin It Down
This is a pose popular with Instagram models. What a chin down selfie does is that it narrows your face, giving you that vogue model appeal. Not only does this pose narrow down your face but it also accentuates your other features like your eyes and nose.
To take a selfie in this pose, tilt your head down a bit, not all the way down though, you are not a zombie, move your head around to get the best angle and then click as many pictures as possible to get your best angle.
Using Accessories
Props can enhance your selfie and make it more interesting, you could try using sunglasses to give yourself a cool look, or some quirky dark rim glasses, even if they aren’t real. How about using an umbrella to frame your face or use something you are carrying to give the selfie more impact.
Best Apps For Selfies
There are a number of apps in the market that are mainly developed to assist you in editing your photos. These apps have a variety of features from filters, Photoshop among other editing features.
Facetune
The de-facto option for selfie enhancements. This app is available for both Android and iOS phones. It has a number of features that will help you tune your selfies and portraits. It has features such as widening smiles, whitening teeth, removing blemishes.
PicsArt
PicsArt is a fun app that has a ton of features that will crop, stretch, add elements in your picture among other amazing features. It also adds amazing art features to your photos such as flower rain and water droplets. It is available for Android, IOS and Windows phones.
Prisma
The Prisma mobile app is another fun app that turns your picture into amazing art. You can also make collages of your favorite photos and add picturesque filters to your selfies. It is available for both Android and IOS phones.
Instagram is not just an app but also an amazing photo editor. Do you wonder why filters are so popular on Instagram? That is because filters started with Instagram. Instagram has a number of filters and photo editing features that can remove blemishes, whiten teeth, whiten eyes, slim the face among other amazing selfies features.
Litely
Although it is only available on iOS, Litely is an amazing mobile app that mimics the features on Adobe Photoshop app. This means you can do amazing stuff with your photos. With Litely, your photos are a blank canvas that you can do a lot on. Additionally, it has some of the famous Instagram filters like Amaro, Sierra and Hudson. Other features include adding sharpness, cropping, enhancing portrait among other many features.
Other amazing phone apps that you can use for your editing are Adobe Photoshop Express, Darkroom, Fontcandy, Flickr and Google Photos. Most of these apps are available for Android, Windows and IOS phones.
All of these apps will surely help you create Instagram ready photos, but you have got to have amazing photos to do this. That is why you need the aforementioned posing tips and tricks that will help you take Instagram-worthy photos to light up your Instagram timeline. Note that it takes a little more than practice to get perfect selfies. A perfect selfie is also one that is taken with confidence. With confidence, you can make any photo look amazing without much ado.
Getting The Best Results From Your Selfie Poses
Now you know all the different types of selfies you can take, let’s explore how to take a good selfie. Like any photography, you have to have the correct settings on your camera to get the best shot. Turning on your phone and letting the automatic mode take a shot for you will mostly always take an okay photo, but if you want a professional edge to your selfies, then mastering the manual settings is something you will have to learn.
Don’t worry, though; it’s not rocket science. While some of the terminologies might be a little strange at first, once you read and understand the simple explanation, it will all make sense.
Blur The Background For Exceptional Selfie Results
When taking portraits using your smartphone, there are some things you can do to help you blur the background and create a professional-looking selfie. Some of these ways include:
- Create more distance between you and your background during your selfie pose
- Using a post-processing tool like Snapseed
Create More Distance Between You and Your Background
One simple way to improve the blur in your photos is to stand further away from your background. By doing so you increase the depth of field, helping you stand out in the photo which no distracting elements in the background. One technique worth adopting is changing the position of your smartphone to above your eye level. This way the phone doesn’t point to the ground, but instead, the camera points to the distant horizon making sure you achieve the maximum depth of field possible.
Using a Post Processing Tool
Apple iPhones market this feature really well. By now you may have seen the famous ad ‘Did you just bokeh my child?” where a mom edits a photo and adjusts the blurriness of the background, resulting in the removal of a friend’s child from the picture. This smart feature is possible using Apple’s intelligent development of ‘Depth Control’.
For this to work, the iPhone uses the rear camera plus artificial intelligence to recognise a person and leave them untouched. The clever software then blurs the surroundings around the person. What’s really amazing about this feature is the user has ultimate control as to how much bokeh they want in the final image. It’s a brilliant way of obtaining the ultimate selfie without too much work.
There are other ways you can add more lens blur into a photo, however, the blur will affect all parts of the image as opposed to Apple’s version. The Snapseed app is a popular choice amongst photographers for this purpose.
Controlling the Lighting For Maximum Effect
Something else to consider when understanding how to take a good selfie is the elements which go beyond your camera. One of these controllable measures is available light. Lighting can either make or break a photo. Too much light may overexposure your selfie, whereas little to no light always results in a blurry, underexposed look. So what should you look for?
Well, if you don’t have a professional studio at the ready, then using window light always proves to be the best option for selfies. If you are indoors, on a train, a bus or plane, using the trickling light through the windowpane is by far going to result in a flattering photo. Therefore, to get the most of the light entering through the window, it is essential to diffuse it.
Diffusing the sun to reduce any unflattering shadows may require you to pull a thin veil over the window, especially during the middle of the day. However, if you find yourself capturing a selfie towards sunset, and you’re next to a window – that’s a winning combination for a professional selfie.
Know Where To Stand and How To Point Your Smartphone
Did you know that holding your phone and standing in a particular way can significantly alter the look of a selfie? Holding your camera the wrong way or even standing too close to the camera can harm the look that you wish to achieve. So, what’s the best method to follow?
STEP 1 – Holding Your Smartphone Correctly to Master Selfies
Understanding how to take a good selfie starts with holding your smartphone correctly. When you first pick up your phone, you want to make sure you keep the phone in your dominant hand. Your index finger should mould to the top of the phone while your pinky finger holds the weight of the phone in one hand. This particular selfie grip frees up your thumb to press the shutter button.
Once you have a tight grip toward the end of the phone near the microphone (the part you speak into). The selfie camera should then be the furthest away from you. Then, angle the selfie lens and phone screen, so that is parallel with both of your eyes. Many people forget to do this step, and it leads to some horrible selfie distortion.
STEP 2 – Extend Your Arm
Next, while maintaining a balance of the phone between your two-finger grip, extend your dominant arm away from you, as far as it can go. Remember to keep your phone screen parallel with both of your eyes. Your arm should be higher than your head, so the camera looks down at you.
STEP 3 – Transfer Your Weight Away From the Camera
One secret many portrait photographers will tell you is to keep your feet about shoulder-width apart. One foot should be closer to the camera and the other positioned behind the lead foot. Then, transfer your body weight onto the back foot. What this will do for your figure is make you appear smaller as the bulk of your body is further away from the camera.
STEP 4 – Look at the Correct Spot for the Perfect Selfie Look
The final step while holding your arm at full length is to look directly into the camera lens. Don’t for a one-second look at yourself on the screen, instead look deeply into the lens. Afterwards, once you have taken the photo using your free thumb, review the shot.
Hopefully, by the end of the article, you should now know how to take a good selfie. What we would encourage you to do is practice these steps while ensuring you dial in the manual modes on your smartphone. After a while, the process will become second nature. It won’t matter if you are posing by yourself or with a group, the steps are the same. The final thing to remember is to have fun. Selfies are about living in the moment, so don’t forget to smile!
Printing Selfies
Sometimes you may want to keep a printed version of your selfies, so you may want to consider a photo printer. These photo printers are small enough to carry around and produce amazing quality pictures to share with your friends.