Not everyone can take photos like David Bailey, Patrick Demarchelier, or Yousuf Karsh, but we can all follow a few simple guidelines to make the most of the mugshot we use on Facebook, Twitter and our websites.
- Use the best camera you have access to. A web cam is fine if that’s all you’ve got, but if you have a digital SLR and a tripod with a remote shutter release, why not use that instead. We want to see your face in all its glory.
- Set up your portrait space, get rid of background clutter so that we see you, not the Che poster behind you and so that you avoid a lampstand growing from the top of your head.
- Make sure you’re far enough away from whatever camera you use so that it can focus properly, there’s nothing worse than a blurred profile picture (except a South Park style “humourous” picture, of course). If you have aperture control on your camera set it to a low number to reduce the depth of field and make sure you’re focusing on your eyes.
- Avoid on-camera flash. Take the photo near a window and exploit natural daylight to get the best skin tone and preclude “red eye”. It also avoids the (blue or orange) colour cast of artificial light
- Keep everyone else in the room behind the camera. We want to see you, not be confused about who we’re looking at whether, significant other, pet ridgeback, or gimp.
- Look at the lens of the camera when you (or your assistant) presses the shutter release. We’d much rather feel that you are looking at us square in the eye rather than see a sideways glance at the keyboard or mouse when you take the shot.
- Take half a dozen snaps in quick succession and choose the best, crop it so that it shows your face fully (unless you want us to see your fabulous outfit, uniform, gimp choker and nipple clamps.
- Finally, ignore all these suggestions and do something really creative!
Originally posted 14th September 2011