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This week, we attempted our very first family selfie 🙂

It didn’t go too badly, but reminded me of how difficult it is working with little people on shoots….even when they’re yours :/

I’m a professional photographer, so the technical side of it was simple.  Let me quickly run you through how you can take good-looking photos without spending a fortune.

Look, you definitely can’t replace the value of having a professional photographer; but I know it’s definitely handy to be able to take your own photos every now and then….because let’s face it, good professional photography does come at a bit of a cost.

So, here’s how I went about the set up.

BACKDROP

Firstly, I used a white canvas backdrop.  It’s not necessary to have this, but I wanted that white, clean background for these photos.  Otherwise, a plain wall can also work.  If you don’t own a canvas backdrop and would like to hire one, you could even go to a place like LensRental to hire one out, and any other gear you might need.

LIGHTING

Secondly, one of the most important things is the lighting…if not the most important.  You need to set up in a space that has a lot of good light coming in.  We took these close to our glass doors and so we didn’t need to use any additional lighting.  A room with a big window is also useful.

GEAR

Most people have DSLR nowadays……any DSLR camera can do the job really, as long as it has the timer option.  What I’ve found makes a huge difference is the lens on the camera.   You can go ahead and use what you have, but generally, if you’re looking to improve the quality of your photos, especially in low light situations, a 50mm prime lens is a good purchase.  Most DLSR brands will have a 50mm prime lens in their range.

If you are taking a family selfie, what you will definitely need is a tripod, unless you have a table or something high enough that you can place the camera on.  I’ve used couches and whatever else has been available before, but the thing is that this can dictate where you take the photo, which could be not ideal.  You can find tripods for cheap at places like Makro or TakeALot.

 

And then, once you have the stuff above, the rest is easy.  Just set up your people and leave a space for you to squeeze into, put your camera on the timer mode…..and voila!  Just be prepared to do a lot of running and a lot of takes if necessary 🙂

 

EDITING

And then lastly, the editing.  There’s a lot of free software out there.  One of my favorites is Snapseed, they have a desktop and mobile applications available.  But then again, if you’re shooting your photos in jpeg, or using your camera in the automatic mode, you probably don’t really need to do any editing really.