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How to Take Your Perfect Selfie: An Over 50 Guide

Look around in almost any scene you’re in, and you’re likely to find someone nearby taking a selfie. Everyone’s doing it, right!? It’s just part of real life to carry a phone with us, and we love to share our images on social media. Learning how to take a great selfie over 50 isn’t hard.

In fact, taking great selfies is fun when we can share our lives with our followers, Kim Kardashian style! She loves to be in front of the camera, even when it doesn’t involve a professional photographer. So I have good news. I’m going to walk you through the best way to put your camera to work.

What do you do to step up your selfie game? Especially when you’re over 50 and no longer as, um, smooth, and, er, flaw-free as you were in your 20’s? No Worries! You follow these simple selfie tips to learn how to take a good selfie over 50! With these easy tips for great selfies, you’ll be ready to share your beautiful face and showcase your true beauty before you know it!

A Good Selfie Begins with Good Tools

Tools aren’t just for your construction crew. A tool is any piece of equipment used to get a job done. So don’t underestimate the importance of what tools you’re using to capture your best side to share with the world.

Enter the Smart Phone

Of course, an essential tool for a good selfie is your smartphone. Today’s phones are great at capturing images quickly and simply while you’re on the run. So don’t worry about whether you’re an Android girl or an iPhone girl. Either phone will do, as long as it’s not ancient and as long as it has a front-facing camera. For those who are technology challenged, a front-facing camera has the lens facing the user on the same side as the screen (thanks, PC Magazine, for that simple definition). I think it would be pretty hard to find a smartphone these days that doesn’t have that feature! Think of it as the mirror feature of your camera. You know – the feature that lets you turn it on and see yourself right on the screen!

Since I am asking you to learn something new, I’ve decided to learn something new, too. I am learning to add video to my posts. So here we go. A shiny new video for your viewing pleasure. Be kind. I’m still learning!

Bonus tip – if you know your camera has that feature and don’t know how to access it, I’ve got you covered! Just turn on the camera and look for the little symbol that resembles arrows in a circle. Tap that, and lickety-split, your phone’s camera will move to front-facing mode!

Another great read: Thank You for the Friendship: 10 Life Lessons to Learn From TV’s Golden Girls

Related: The Complete Guide to Podcasts for Women Over 50: Who, What, and Why

And Introducing the Selfie Stick

If you haven’t heard of this handy little gadget, now is the time to get familiar! A selfie stick is a lightweight, extendable pole that allows you to clip your phone onto it and take your photo from a few feet out. Our arms are only so long. And they don’t always compliment our image when they take up most of it!

Of course, if you don’t have a selfie stick, you can use your camera’s timer to get the perfect selfie. My friends and I used some packing tape to stick my camera to the back of a high-top dining room chair to get this beautiful shot of us celebrating my friend Piper’s birthday! Aren’t we lovely? We had a fabulous, fun day celebrating how cool and unique she is. I hope you watched my video above, which shows you how to use the timer on your cell phone, which is what we did here once we got the phone all taped into position. I only hope we didn’t leave a mark on the back of that chair when we ripped the tape off!

Another great read: Be Brave and Courageous – 100 Fun Ways to Say No

How to Take a Good Selfie Over 50?

Use the Right Lighting!

Just because I said right lighting doesn’t mean you want to run out and stand in the center of a sunbeam for your next selfie. Direct sunlight causes squinting (hello lines) and harsh shadows, which are usually pretty unpleasant, especially on a mature face. Find a shaded area and take your selfie while you are looking in the direction of the brightly lit area. This technique is called “open shade.” It allows you to get all the beautiful bright light on your face without the squinting and shadows from direct sunlight.

But what’s a girl to do when natural light isn’t available? Say you’re in a restaurant, or it’s evening, and the sun has gone down? The simple answer is to find a different light source! And how do you do that? Here are a couple of ways to handle that scenario.

If you’re in a home or a place where you have control over light switches, turn on the lights! Turn on every single light you can find. You’ll be amazed at what a difference that makes. To get the proper lighting, follow the same rules with lights as with sunlight. Don’t shine a big spotlight straight onto your face. You’re looking for the bright light that doesn’t blind you. Got it? Great. Next step?

A Good Selfie Includes a Clean Background

Now it can be a little tricky to ensure that you have a clean background, but honestly, it’s worth the extra few seconds to make it happen. Before you snap that shutter, look at what’s showing up behind you in the photo. You may be surprised to find someone or something back there that isn’t what you desire or expect. If you’re taking a selfie of you and your grandson with his new driver’s license, be sure to cover up the pertinent info before posting his driver’s license number all over social media!

If your dirty laundry is piled up, ready to be tossed in the washer (see photo above), you may not want that to show for the whole world to see. Or if the star of the show is your precious new granddaughter, you may not want her cheeky dad photo bombing you when you least expect it. Although frankly, my son is pretty handsome, don’cha think!?

Camera, Lights, Background? Next Step – YOU!

Now that we’ve covered the technical details let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of creating the perfect selfie. Follow these tips to get the best selfie poses that you’ll be proud to share!

Show a genuine smile. Cheesy grins are so last year! Natural smiles come easy if you’re having fun, so show us those pearly whites!

Look for different angles. Don’t think every selfie has to be taken from the front. Some of the best shots are from the side or when you’re interacting with your friends. The best pose is the pose that shows you’re having fun!

Shoot from Eye-level. When you take your photo from below eye level, you’ll notice that your chin may double, or in my case, triple. Eeek! Another unfortunate side effect of taking a selfie from a low angle below eye level is the dreaded droopy-eyed look. We want to look wide awake and wide-eyed. Gravity is doing her best to pull those lids down, and you do not have to be a willing participant in this look!

With age comes wisdom, and those of us who are over 50 and filled with wisdom know that all good rules are meant to be broken, so don’t be afraid to go a little crazy breaking the eye-level rule. A photo shot from just above eye level will help define your jawline, and when you look up toward your camera, your eyes will naturally pop open a bit. Take that, mother nature!

Shoot your best side. A note about your best side: we all have one, and we all know it. So embrace it! Take that photo from your good side proudly!

The dreaded double chin. And finally, let’s address the double chin phenomenon. Since we’ve already established that no one wants to spend their spare time counting how many chins we have, let’s talk about how to avoid it. Do these two simple things, and you’ll be amazed at the difference.

First, put your tongue on the roof of your mouth before you snap that selfie. Sounds silly, but it works. Go look in the mirror and watch what happens when you do it. I’ll wait.

Next, push your face forward toward the camera. Really stick your neck out on this one! This move stretches your neck skin out and reduces that rolled look. Trust me. It works. And if you don’t believe it, read 5 Insanely Simple Ways to Make Your Subject Look Thinner for more details and pictures showing before and after shots. You’ll be shocked! I promise!

Wrapping It All Up

You don’t have to be a beauty blogger to fill your camera roll with lots of selfies. And great selfies aren’t just for Instagram influencers either. They are for everyone! Use some of these easy and handy tips and tools, and you’ll be sharing your incredible selfies just like the young people are doing. We don’t want to let them have all the fun!

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