Portrait Photography - Self Portraiture
Self-portraiture
“The portrait I do best is of the person I know best.”
Nadar
Making self-portraits
Whether you want to update your social networking profile or send your favourite aunt a photo to remember you by, making a good portrait of yourself is a meaningful activity and can be a great confidence boost. In the following exercises we will be looking at how you can add character and atmosphere to your self-portraits to show yourself at your very best.
The examples of self-portraits we’re showing you in these exercises were taken by a small group of people working together to plan and pose for their own shots, whilst directing one another to capture the desired image.
When taking self-portraits, it’s possible to work on your own, using self-timers and remote equipment, or to involve a friend or family member to help you. Your friend doesn’t need to be an expert in photography, just be willing to enjoy learning and experimenting with photography, alongside you.
All the ideas and tips you’ll learn in these exercises can be applied to photographing other people too, so let’s get started!
What might these exercises offer?
The Self-portraiture exercises:
- Help to generate ideas for self-portraiture
- Encourage us to recognise some of our personal strengths and celebrate these. Celebrating personal strengths is good for self-esteem
- Enable us to gain practice at posing for portraits
- Give us some useful skills in directing other people for portraits
- Help us express our ideas clearly so that others can help us get the photos we want – being able to clearly direct others is a very useful skill!
- Bring together our photography skills of composition and lighting to create fabulous portraits
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