How To Take A Selfie; OOTD Edition

Welcome to the second installment of How To Take a Selfie: OOTD edition. If you’re not sure what OOTD stands for (hi Mom), that would be Outfit Of The Day. I personally love OOTD posts, and there are some amazing style bloggers out there offering inspiration for a wide range of styles, budgets and body types. I found that most style bloggers outline how they achieve their OOTD photos in their FAQ sections, usually with some helpful tips.

I ended up taking these photos inside with a backdrop, and I shot five outfits all at one time. I used a tripod, a canon T3i with my 18-55mm kit lens and I set the timer to 10 seconds with continuous shooting. This allowed me lots of time to get into place and move through a couple of poses without having to go back to the camera as often.

Putting together an outfit for an OOTD shoot takes a bit of thought. The camera will catch any wrinkles, stains or poorly fitting clothing and freeze them in time. Things that you can get away with in real life, or at least think you can get away with might be the thing that ruins a look. This was a bit of an issue for me because I’m apparently a slob and the last time I ironed anything it was with a hair straightener…
Posing in front of the camera is my nightmare. It took me three outfit changes to even start warming up and having fun in front of the camera. I definitely felt that the pictures when I was a little more relaxed and playful looked a lot nicer. I ruined a ton of shots because I over exaggerated a pose. If you're looking off camera try keeping your gaze just to the side of the camera or straight a head of you to prevent only seeing the whites of your eyes, its not a good look.

Here is what I’ve learned so far… This is harder than it looks. Take as many pictures as you can stand. Practice your poses and try a lot of them to figure out what works for you. Use good posture, this is so important. Find good light, possibly the most important. And finally, relax and have fun, like I said it’s harder than it looks. All in all I ended up with enough pictures that I’m going to do an individual post on each of them over the next month so stay tuned.