Take Your Selfie Seriously

The Advanced Selfie and Self-Portrait Handbook

Sorelle Amore

• Publisher: Laurence King Publishing
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781786279040
• eBook ISBN: 9781399600019
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Do you want to improve your social-media profile? Learn how to express yourself through beautiful, artistic self-portraits with Take Your Selfie Seriously: The Advanced Selfie and Self-Portrait Handbook. Existing in today's world without photos of yourself is hardly possible, existing without great photos of yourself can be crippling. Take Your Selfie Seriously walks you through the fundamentals of taking the perfect selfie - the gear, pose, facial expression, outfit choice, story, composition, lighting and more. Posting your selfie is an opportunity for you to declare visually who you are and what you aspire to be. Take it seriously and you'll unleash a whole new world of opportunity and potential in the process.From Sorelle Amore, the well-known photographer, filmmaker, influencer and savvy business person whose #Blessed Instagram and Advanced Selfie University programmes have inspired her millions followers across the globe to up their selfie game and improve their online presence!

chapter_002

Self-Awareness

Who are you?
Who do you want to create?
How do you want to be seen?

Knowing who you are is a great place to start on your journey with self-portraiture. This method of photography requires a lot of self-awareness and will result in a lot of self-discovery. Once you understand what you love, what you hate and everything else that you are made up of, you can choose which elements to translate into your art.

I have already mentioned highlighting parts of yourself and your personality that you love, but there’s so much that can be created with art when you dig into some of the darker or less explored parts of your mind or soul. This is probably where the most powerful images you create will come from, as they will be charged with emotion and power.

Don’t limit yourself or your art by thinking that taking self-portraits means you must always share the images. Some of the art you create may show parts of yourself or your emotions that you won’t want to make public. That’s perfectly fine; just know that not showcasing an image doesn’t in any way diminish its power or beauty. This form of expression can sometimes (or always) be for your eyes only, or for the eyes of a loved one.

Here are some examples of visions of your unexpressed self that you might want to bring to life:

• Provocative photography
• Dark photography
• Nude photography
• Heartbroken photography
• Distressed photography
• Role-play costume photography
• Timid or weak photography
• Angry photography
• Fiction-inspired photography
• Medieval history photography

These can all be examples of the shadow self, which in psychology refers to parts of yourself that you haven’t fully embraced, or have so far shunned. We all have the capability to feel or think extreme thoughts. Most of us bottle these emotions up and some express these thoughts or feelings behind closed doors in solitude. A lot of us fear rejection or ridicule for feeling this way, or simply we personally fear meeting these ‘unacceptable’ feelings or thoughts. (I’m not talking about emotions that actually make people act in a dangerous manner!)

The Advanced Selfie is a way to dig into the shadow self, and embrace those parts that are usually hidden. An acknowledged shadow self is a lot safer, since the itch has been scratched and the emotion given time to speak. Unacknowledged and repressed parts of the shadow self have the tendency to bubble up to the surface and explode without warning, sometimes doing serious damage to our mental, physical or spiritual health.

So get that latex on, honey, and start snapping!

I’m using the power pose here (see here), as well as shooting from a lower angle to accentuate my best feature – my legs. A powerful facial expression to match and it feels as though this image allows my alter ego to come out and play.

Assessing yourself: what is your angle?

If knowing who you are inside is the headline band, knowing yourself on the outside is the support act. It’s time to get yourself in front of a full-length mirror so that you can start assessing the body that carries you through life. You only require a phone camera at this time.

The selfie camera on most phones is a wide-angle lens. For this reason, don’t take the photo too close to your face, as it will widen and distort your features, and not give a true representation of who you actually are. Furthermore, you will feel very odd performing some of the exercises on the following pages and keep in mind that the phone camera in your messy room, with your messy hair isn’t going to capture your absolute best right now. It will be raw but we’re looking for small hints of what your best angles are. Go easy on yourself.

During this exercise, wear fairly fitted clothing. This will help you separate your body parts more easily, in order to pinpoint exactly when your arm is in the right spot, for example. Let’s break down the face and body parts step by step, to help you identify your best angles.

Face assessment

Stand next to a window during daylight for this assessment (natural light is some of the best to photograph yourself in). Take photos of your face from these angles, and ask yourself which do you prefer.

• Your face straight to camera, at 45-degrees, and in profile.
• Both sides of your face, and assess whether you like one side more than the other. Lots of people say they have a ‘good’ side and a ‘bad’ side; I prefer my right side, for example. Many professional models are photographed only on one side – even top fashion models. Do a quick online search for pictures of your favourite models, and you’ll see that many are captured primarily from just one side.
• With your face tilted slightly up, in a neutral front-on position, and tilted slightly down.
• Your face front on, with your head tilted slightly to your left (ear to shoulder), straight on and tilted slightly to your right.
• With your eyes looking straight into the camera, and then various images of your eyes looking slightly up, slightly down, to the left, to the right and into the ‘corners’ of the frame.
• Does your face look better if you’re laughing, with a big smile, neutral, smiling slightly, smiling with a closed mouth, smiling with an open mouth, with a seductive expression, an inquiring expression, a cute expression, or a strong or fierce look?

Bronte
Learn to recognize either the part of your face that you like or the angle that works well for you. Of course, having regular features and an oval face doesn’t mean you can’t take a loopy self-portrait, as Bronte shows here. But, despite the quirkiness of the pose, she emphasizes her lips with a rich colour so that there’s no doubt about her favourite feature.
@frombeewithlove

Once you’ve assessed all these parts individually, it’s time to put your favourites...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Change Your Outlook
• Self-Awareness
• Logistics
• Photography
• Get Creative
• Take It One Step Further
• Where to Go Next
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Picture Credits
• Copyright