ROGER-DONOVAN010Roger Donovan portrait 7/6/20.

Shooting a successful selfie is not as easy at it sounds. Lots do it on their phones but is it really the sort of image you want to represent you in business?

A new portrait for my social media channels was long overdue and I had the dilemma of shooting a selfie or not. Trish usually helps but this time I thought I’d use some new technology to help me shoot my own.

Shooting your own portrait can be a challenge and involves setting the camera up on a tripod, focussing and framing an imaginary subject, jumping in front of the camera and firing the shutter either on a self timer or using a radio trigger. You do all this blind as you have no idea what you look like. 

My Nikon Z6 camera connects to my iPhone with wifi and using an app on the phone I’m able to make exposure alterations and fire the camera remotely whilst viewing the camera image on the phone. I set the camera up on a tripod and began shooting.

I’m never comfortable in front of the camera ( I’m certain this is why I chose a career behind the camera ) but went through various poses in front of the camera trying not to grin too manicly. I’d set the software to download a low res copy of the image as soon as it was taken so was able to check how I was looking without moving back to the camera.

Taking your own picture is somehow not natural. The process of taking a portrait should be a process of give and take between photographer and sitter. The photographer needs to create a rapport with the sitter so the sitter relaxes and finally gives up a little of themselves to the photographer that allows a small part of their personality to be captured in the image. That relationship obviously just isn’t present when doing a self portrait.

Final image selection was made on my desktop computer, followed by a bit of post production and conversion to B/W with a little colour tone added I was happy with the result.

If you are uncomfortable in front of the camera, a good pro photographer will help you through the process, relax you in front of the camera and cajole that little extra something out of you to create an image you will be pleased with.

If you don’t fancy going through the selfie palaver to shoot your own portrait then give me a call, I'd be happy to help create a business portrait image you'd be happy to use across your social media platforms and website.