How to take a selfie when travelling

Andrew Dickens

Whether you’re a selfie-hater, selfie junkie or sitting on that selfie fence, if you value your social media game at all, you need to know how to take a selfie. Two Instagram stars give their self-photography tips.

Love or loathe ‘em, it looks like the selfie is here to stay, with 24 billion flooding the internet in just one year, according to Google. Apple’s 2010 front-facing camera was the watershed moment, and now everyone from Barack Obama to astronaut Aki Hoshide (who captured the first one in outer space) are making selfies a defining part of modern culture. In 2013, the S-word was even added to the Oxford Dictionary.

Way before the advent of the smartphone, self-portraitists Rembrandt and Van Gogh were the original selfie masters and while paint may have evolved to pixels, but the self-expression has endured. Casting any digital narcissism aside, selfies can play a very positive role in people’s lives. Beyond them eliciting a feel-good factor (because who doesn’t need that dopamine hit every once in a while) they’re an extension of how we live and learn about each other.

By saying “this is me”, you’re not only connecting with your tribe, be that fellow foodies or mountain bikers, but getting to know yourself. And being a good friend to yourself is the ultimate act of self-care. According to psychologists at the University of California, regularly taking selfies uplifts your mood, confidence and makes you more appreciative.

There are few better occasions to whip out your selfie stick (or even selfie drone, these days), than when indulging in some solo travel, especially in a small group. So we picked the creative brains and rummage the kit bags of two adventurous travellers, Luke Morris (islandofluke) and Thuymi Do (thuymi) for the ultimate tips on how to take the perfect selfie.

Natural light is your best ally

… well, most of the time.

“Midday sun will create lots of shadow on your face” Luke says. “Softer light just after sunrise or before sunset I find to be best.”

Too orange? “If [the photo is] over-saturated knock it back in editing with Adobe Lightroom Mobile,” he adds.

Most importantly, make sure the sun is behind you, and if you’re a sucker for sun flare, hold your phone slightly above your head.

Thuymi says, “Many people just pull their phone out and snap the photo, forgetting they can actually control the brightness to make the photo ten times better.”

If you’re in lowlight situations, an iPhone LuMee case works wonders, emulating a ring flash used by fashion photographers.

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Remember your background

You’re travelling to some pretty epic places after all! You may regret blocking out the Eiffel Tower, so position the background first, then put your face in it to frame the shot. Thuymi relies on her Nikon Z7’s wide-angled 14-24 lens for selfies to get everything in the shot, whilst Luke is one of a growing wave of ‘dronies.’

“From a non-traditional perspective, I use my drone (DJI Mavic Pro) to get a type of selfie from further away, usually with much more impressive views,” he says.

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Don’t over-retouch

Unless you’re an aspiring beauty blogger, most people don’t want to see an airbrushed picture of perfection. More intimate and relatable, the ‘candid shot’ is what free-spirited solo travel and living in the moment is all about. Thuymi’s advice?

“My rule is you must only Photoshop out what is temporary,” she says. “For example, pimples or a fly that accidentally flies by your cheek. Never fix your teeth, your scars, your body, simply because you are who you are.”

Instead, dedicate your editing time to the overall picture, with apps like snapseed (a favourite of Thuymi’s) and Lightroom mobile: Luke’s go-to app.

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Get creative

Mix-up how you use your selfie stick: bury it in the sand, sling it over your shoulder, attach it to your ski pole or hold it (and your breath), underwater. Luke is a fan.

“GoPro is great for this, especially for swimming with turtles, mantas and sharks,” he says. Their fisheye lens is one solution to framing big things like a hot air balloon and you in the shot.

Reflective surfaces can be your friend too (experiment with keeping those sunglasses on), whilst putting your camera on the ground is a clever way to make people feel like they are right in the scene with you.

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How to counter the embarrassment factor

Whilst we love to hate them, the much-maligned selfie stick does give a wider angle that’s worth those 60 seconds of cringe, unless you’re in Disney World or Rome’s Colosseum that is, which have outlawed them!

For all other tourist-mobbed locations, they come in handy for snapping far above a crowd or being “your eyes” peering over that cliff in more remote locations. If you’re still feeling awkward, use a prop like a flower in your other hand and invest in a Bluetooth-enabled selfie stick to speed things up. As Thuymi succinctly puts it, “you do it for you, who cares what people think!”

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Timing is everything

Your camera’s self-timer is your best friend reckons Thuymi, who uses it “99% of the time”, together with interval shooting mode on her Nikon Z7.

“It’s a game-changer, it just keeps snapping tons of photos,” she says. “It’s like having a professional photographer snapping for me!”

Luke adds: “[In] more extreme situations I like to use the time-lapse photo mode on the GoPro and adjust it to take pics every second or half a second. Depending on the scenario you might come out with hundreds of pics, which although will be annoying to trawl through, will mean that you should get at least one or two that are pretty awesome.”

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Face the facts

Yes the high-angle face shot is a little played out, but it’s only natural to want to intersperse our travel feeds with a few old-school selfies. Humans are hardwired to respond to faces, just read American Academy of Neurology’s January 2019 medical journal if you need convincing. Of all the selfie poses, the 3/4 head tilt is known to be the most flattering, supposedly elongating your jawline. Extend your arm out, position the phone down to highlight your cheekbones and voila!

Thuymi says, “I’d tell people not to have the face looking down for a selfie.”

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Know your kit

Nowadays selfie aficionados don’t just rely on their smartphone. That said – the latest iPhone’s burst mode, which takes up to ten pictures per second with one tap of the screen, could change that. Add an attachable-style lens and you have the closest thing to a prof camera. For Go-Proers like Luke, downloading the GoPro app is a good idea so your phone acts as a wireless app and LCD in one. But what about the all-important accessories?

For Luke and Thuymi, the single-most used one for selfies is a gorilla pod. “It’s super handy for getting the right angle,” Luke says.

Read more: Christ, this is one epic selfie

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Be a Storyteller

It’s what travel is all about, after all. How are you interacting with the scene around you? You want to capture (and remember) that rush of adrenaline when you encountered a herd of elephants for the first time.

“I think when animals are included they make the best selfies,” Luke says.

“I want my photos to be energetic and project happiness,” says Thuymi. “In a nutshell, my selfies must still tell a story.”

And that means no landscape or activity is off-limits, like kayaking in Antarctica, which she braved with her Nikon DSLR (“always with a wet-bag, though!”).

Beyond the tips ‘n tricks, what really underscores capturing a great selfie is having confidence, feeling comfortable and asking yourself why you’re doing it in the first place.

“I generally take selfies to convey extreme happiness and gratitude for being in such a beautiful location in that particular moment,” says Luke. Amen to that!

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