Why You Should Be Taking More Self Portraits



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Self portraits are getting a bit of a bad rap lately. While selfies are socially acceptable and perfect fodder for social media posts, all of a sudden it seems like the only way to go is to use a smartphone camera and add a few filters. That’s not the only way you can do a self-portrait, however. In fact, putting your DSLR on a timer or investing in a shutter release cable could do you a world of good – by letting you turn the camera on yourself. It’s time to compose, frame, and think like a photographer for your self portrait. Here’s why you should be doing it this way much more often.

To Practice Your Craft

Photography is a craft, a skill, and an art. It is not something everyone just “gets” – you can probably think of a few people even in your family that really don’t know how to take a good photograph. It stands to reason, then, that you are not going to be a master photographer the second that you first pick up a camera. Learning how to use the camera can really help you when it comes to working with models.

There is so much to practice. Lining up and framing the shot is one thing; what about using manual settings? How can you create a lighting setup that will work without needing additional on-camera flash? What does using on-camera flash do to the portrait? What ISO should you use? How can you make the best of low lighting situations? All of these questions are things you can answer with some self-portrait practice. You can even try recreating other self-portraits from famous photographers to see if you can match their lighting and settings by working them out for yourself. This will help you to learn so much more about how your camera works, and what makes a good photograph.

Why You Should Be Taking More Self-Portraits

Photo by Alex Wong

To Unleash Your Creativity

All of us have at least a little seed of creativity. It takes a lot of nutrition to make that seed grow – throw it on barren soil and it will simply wither. Feed it and you’ll see it blossom. You can use your self-portrait as a way to try out new ideas – even applying make-up or other special effects to your own face to see how they will work. How about trying out your Photoshop skills by making some odd or impossible portraits?

A lot of photographers have even made a career out of this kind of creative self-portrait. If you are shy you can keep them to yourself, but you can certainly use them as the basis of your work with other models. What’s more, you may find that as your skills develop and grow, you end up wanting to share them after all.

By the way, this isn’t a new thing caused by the Instagram generation – photographers like Cindy Sherman have been successfully making creative self portraits for decades, and have made a career out of it.

To Capture Time Passing

It’s actually a good idea to take photos of yourself and the ones you love on a regular basis. Too often we forget to capture the good times, leaving us wishing we could go back and see them again. It’s a horrible thought, but imagine a loved one of yours died tomorrow. Wouldn’t you wish you had more photographs of them to look back on and remember them? The same is probably true for them of you, and a good self-portrait every so often will capture the way you are throughout the years. If nothing else, it’s great for nostalgia later on.

Why You Should Be Taking More Self-Portraits

Photo by Alex Harvey

To Make a Great Photo Project

You can also turn self-portraits into a really interesting photography project. Some people have been very successful at taking a portrait every day for extended periods of time, later turning them into a time-lapse video that shows their transformation. Others take the same portrait once a year to show time passing and create a monument to the progression of human age. You could even combine your creative skills here and make a habit of doing a creative portrait once a week, in order to create a long-running series. You may be surprised to find that more people than you think are interested in your self portraits!

To Let People Meet You Online

The more self portraits you take, the more likely it is that you will like one or two of them. This gives you something to post online, on your website and on social media pages, to represent yourself. When your potential clients are looking you up, it’s great for them to see what you look like. It allows them to meet you before they ever see you in person, and just the way you look can make them feel relaxed and look forward to their session. It’s a bit disconcerting, then, if they show up for their session only to find someone who looks ten years older with a totally different haircut. Keep it up to date, and your clients are likely to feel a bit more relaxed with you.

Why You Should Be Taking More Self-Portraits

Photo by Gabriele Forcina

To Discover Yourself

It’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s really important to find yourself. The more photographs you take of yourself, the more you will learn. You are in complete control, from pressing the shutter through to post production. You will see every line on your own face, learn what kind of light is flattering, and maybe even make drastic changes to your appearance as a result. That doesn’t have to be a scary thing – you may even realize that you like the way you look more than you thought. Through self-portraiture, you can learn to just be yourself. That’s a pretty big benefit in exchange for a few minutes every now and then pointing a camera at your own face.