A self-portrait is a pic that depicts the photographer who took it. This genre is meant to show a shooter’s personality in a professional way, which cannot be said about a selfie. This is a piece of art that demands expertise and preparation from the person who shoots it.
Self-photography ideas will be beneficial for those who want to improve their photography skills, enrich their portfolio, and upgrade their profile pic social media, or CV. Such a photo session is a great way to discover more about your appearance and inner world.
If you are interested in dreamy and magical self-portrait ideas, incorporate fairy lights. Discover some original ways to light your face and add some spice to the background. Raise the lights in front of the camera and check whether they aren’t covering it entirely to produce a gorgeous bokeh.
One of the cool portrait ideas is to hold a small portable mirror at arm’s length and take a unique picture of yourself in the reflection. To add a creative touch to your photography, take advantage of a broken mirror and think of mirror picture poses.
When walking down the street, look out for reflective surfaces for taking unique self portraits photos. It may be windows, puddles, or metallic surfaces. The variety of such things is endless and they can really diversify your self-portraiture.
Try to take photos through bokeh filters (to make bokeh star- or heart-shaped) or cellophane (for a dreamy look).
Diptychs and triptychs present two or three pics. By mixing several images, you can easily create a narrative through your self-portraits. Position your camera at various angles, playing with light or capturing different emotions on your face.
Switch on the burst mode and take pics of yourself while performing some actions to catch some interesting moments.
For taking such unique self portraits, you need to use a glass photography prism to twist light to create colorful flare and reflections. Just locate a glass prism in front of the camera and you will see an impressive rainbowy play of light on your face.
Though the light is of tremendous importance, you may use the lack of it to your advantage to realize fantastic self-portrait photography ideas. With shadows, it is easy to cover the part of your face or body to create some sophisticated effect. For such shadow photos, choose an interesting place that can cast original shadows on you like lace curtains, palm leaves, water, architectural elements, etc.
Among self portraits ideas with a captivating focal point, concealing one side of your face is a truly amazing one. You may hide yourself with the help of a variety of objects – the one which is important to you, tree leaves, curtains, your hands, hair, whatever you think will fit.
The chosen color should be associated with you, match your personality, and harmonize with your overall look. Do not stick to a single color, tinkering with similar shades.
For instance, it may be yellow. Then take yellow clothing, hold a yellow object in your hand, and locate yourself against a yellow background. Various tones will produce a marvelous effect.
Use the Fix The Photo Editor & Retouch app to improve the tones in a photo, change the color scheme, or even add some objects. Unlike tools that rely entirely on AI, here all manipulations are performed manually by professional retouchers.
Shoot yourself in macro to put emphasis on a specific part of the body or facial feature. Such images will turn out really intimate and will differ from regular self portrait photo ideas.
I am sure that not everybody will appreciate fine art nude photography as self-portrait ideas. However, this kind of shooting may be rather artful due to the combination of correct lighting and natural human body lines and curves.
You don’t have to be totally naked in case it makes you feel uneasy, you may just take off your top or beautifully hide your intimate parts and convey the sense of nudity.
In case you have a dog, a cat, or other pets, try adding them to your cool self portraits. Keep in mind that pets do not tend to pose motionless, so it is better to prepare different poses to give your furry friend a bit of freedom and take several heart-warming shots.
One of the most prominent self-portrait photography series ideas is to imagine yourself as an actor and display different emotions capturing each of them on camera.
Many famous self portrait photographers resorted to the trick of taking a series of shots. In case you just need a single shot, it won’t hurt to take more than five pictures. This way, you may choose a different pose or emotion for each photograph.
If you are in search of original self portrait ideas, framing is probably one of the greatest ones. There are many examples of framing it is possible to build using such natural objects as leaves or branches. Besides, you can create a frame with your hands without involving any additional props in your photoshoot.
Shooting from an eye level is a common practice among photographers. However, as practice shows, you’ll get more interesting results when tinkering with various angles and viewpoints. Besides, the original perspective can help you look at yourself from the outside revealing new facets of your personality.
You will certainly get shining and interesting self portraits if you involve glitter powder. You may blow it in the direction of the lens or cover your body and face with it.
If you do not want to spend hours getting your shooting space tidy after such a photoshoot, add glitter digitally with the help of free overlays.
No matter what self portrait photo ideas you realize, you can always use them to create timeless and gorgeous black and white shots.
If you want to highlight different textures of your pic, B&W portrait photos will let you do so. For example, try to capture yourself against a concrete wall texture to create an interesting composition.
Adding several colored details to B&W pics is among the most eccentric self photography ideas. These can be eyes or lips, or some props like brush, perfume, or apple.
Shooting yourself in motion is one of the most unusual self portrait ideas. Just set a slow shutter speed and do some action in front of the lens. This interesting technique allows making still pic more dynamic. Use long exposure if you want to make a false impression of several people floating in the pic.
You will need glass and paint or other objects to implement this idea. Place the glass before the camera and decorate it to match your image.
One of the most beautiful examples of creative self portrait photography is a picture of a human silhouette. To realize this idea, locate a bright lighting source in the background. When shooting outdoors, everything – from streetlamps to sun, moon, or bonfire may serve as a lighting source.
Unique self portrait ideas involve using double exposure. Shoot yourself displaying various emotions, blend yourself with a picture of your favorite animal, or overlay your self portrait with a landscape or cityscape.
If you have never experimented with double exposure photography before, you had better choose a dark portrait shot as the base one. Then layer a bright pic over it. The effect will be fantastic if the brighter photo features many intricate details or original textures.
Those who want to amaze their Instagram followers with amazing pic should try to tinker with lighting as such experiments allow realizing cool self portrait ideas. It is easy to achieve an artistic effect with LED lamps or neon lights.
For diverse and cool self portrait ideas, try using color gels. These are color filters that should be located in front of strobe lights or off-camera flashes. I suggest mixing red and blue color gels on a dimmed background for a trendy look.
Add fire to your self-portrait – you can pose with a burning match or candle in the foreground. You can also create amazing fire photography at the post-editing stage using free actions.
The collection of filters allows for adding fire to both the foreground and background of the photo. The range of effects you can achieve with these actions is really huge including extensive blaze, subtle flame, etc. The filters are compatible with Photoshop CS 4-6 and Photoshop CC.
Creating fluorescent shots is one of the most creative self-portrait ideas. To realize it, you’ll need neon paint and ultraviolet light. The procedure itself is quite intuitive: apply some paint to a photo with a paper napkin to create texture, and use a toothbrush to splatter some paint chaotically. Now it is a turn of the blacklight.
Conveniently, you can create such neon photos in Adobe Photoshop, and add to them some glow and dreamy touch. Take advantage of a tripod, as you’ll need to take photos with extremely low shutter speed. As a result, you will get a truly artful, colorful, and bold self portrait.
To realize even more cool portrait ideas, shoot yourself underwater. For such a photoshoot you’ll need to prepare a housing for your camera specifically made for underwater photography. It is also recommended to attach a wide-angle lens to your device and use a 25mm focal distance.
Capture your shadow while doing your favorite activity or simply posing against a wall. Play with your angle and the size of shadows, or add a shape, a bouquet of flowers, or a musical instrument into the frame.
Take a mirror and shoot it instead of your face. Capture what is reflected in the mirror - a flower, a decorative element, a beautiful landscape. You can also add your reflection at the post-production stage.
Another simple self-portrait idea is to position yourself in front of a projector and capture the image projected on your face.
To realize this idea, you’ll need to use photo editing software for PC or Mac. To make such a beautiful collage, take several close-up shots or leverage the Crop tool.
Faceless portraits boost the viewer’s interest and induce them to uncover the model’s face, emotion, or story. The only minus of this approach is that they do not feature facial expressions depicting only a person’s silhouette. Therefore it is important to select interesting locations and use original poses and accessories.
Visit your local craft shop and purchase artificial butterflies for your photoshoot.
With the help of these accessories, you can create several frames with completely different moods - a delicate composition with adorable insects or a frame worthy of a horror movie.
Such creative self portrait ideas in photography aren’t really widespread, mostly because they aren’t so easy to implement. To make the illusion that you are floating above the ground, first take a photo of yourself lying on some object, a chair, for example. And then delete this item in Photoshop.
For a memorable surrealist self portrait, take advantage of a refractive effect of glass and water to twist and distort your face. Feel free to play around with numerous glasses.
Balloons are great props for realizing cool self portrait ideas. You can adorn a room with them, or include this decoration when conducting photoshoots in water or in the field.
Another trick is to cover part of your face with the balloon and integrate it into your look.
Simple yet creative self portrait ideas involve your camera lens. Just take off its rear and front cap. A short lens, for instance, a 50 mm prime one, will perfectly fit your hand.
Face your camera, hold the lens in front of you, and take a picture. For a stunning result, you should be seen clearly in the center of the lens, so put a mirror in front of yourself.
Keep pose cards handy. Thanks to them, you will always have an interesting idea for a new self-portrait photo.
If you have Lightroom installed, take advantage of the program’s presets. They are fully adjustable, you may tweak the parameters and achieve the desired effect in no time. This pack is compatible with Lightroom Desktop and Mobile versions.
