How to take a better selfie

Start with the rear camera and a timer

The front camera is convenient and wide. Held at the end of a bent arm, it sits close to the nose, which is the part of the face nearest the lens, and it enlarges that nose before it enlarges anything else. The rear camera is the better default. It is usually a narrower view, and you can place it farther away. Prop the phone on books, a shelf, or a clamp. Set a timer of a few seconds, or use the volume buttons on a cable or a watch if you have them. Step into the frame. You have just removed the arm that was forcing the lens too close and too low.

If the front camera is all you can use, treat distance as the repair. Extend the arm fully, or better, set the phone down and step back, then crop. Eye level still applies. A filter that narrows the jaw afterward is not the repair. It is a different face, and the person who meets you will notice the swap. A better selfie is a closer agreement between the file and the face in the room. It is not a more valuable person.

Take a short burst once the phone is steady. Blink, then look at the lens, then let the timer finish. The frame you want is often the one after a blink, when the mouth has not yet arranged itself into a costume. Ten seconds of timer is enough. A minute of staring at the glass dries your eyes and freezes the lips.

Put the lens at eye level, not at the ceiling

A lens below the chin looks up the nose and grants the jaw more weight than it has in conversation. A lens held toward the ceiling looks down across the hairline, shrinks the jaw, adds a double shadow under the brow, and fills the background with ceiling. Neither one is the face people see when they talk to you. Raise or lower the phone until the lens sits near your eyes. A few degrees of difference will happen. The ceiling will not.

Check the background in the same glance. If you can see mostly ceiling, the phone is too high. If you can see mostly your nostrils and a lot of chest, the phone is too low. Eye level puts the horizon of the picture through the eyes, which is where a standing conversation sits. Sit if you need the phone on a table to reach that height. Standing on a chair to hold the phone over your head is the ceiling shot with extra risk.

The head can stay level while the phone moves. Tilting your chin up to meet a high phone, or tucking it to meet a low one, adds a second distortion on top of the lens. Move the phone. Leave the chin where it lives when you are listening to someone.

Step back until the nose is yours

Wide lenses stretch whatever is closest. On a face, that is the nose, then the brow, then the cheeks. Arm’s length on a front camera is often still inside the stretch. Step back until the nose in the file matches the nose you see in a mirror from a few feet away. Then crop to a head-and-shoulders frame. Cropping a distant, honest frame is cleaner than shooting a close, stretched one and trying to argue with it.

The same distance problem shows up in groups. The person nearest the lens becomes the widest face, which is rarely the person who wanted that. Line up at a similar distance, or shoot from farther away with the timer and crop. Trade places and take a second frame if someone has to sit forward. A group selfie that makes one friend a caricature is not a record of the friendship.

Mirror selfies add a dirty mirror to a dirty lens, and the phone often covers the face you were trying to show. If you need the mirror, wipe it, and keep the phone below the chin only when both eyes stay visible. For a photograph you will send to someone who has not met you, skip the mirror and use the rear camera across the room. The file will look more like the entrance you actually make.

Clean the lens before you blame your face

Finger oil on the glass is enough to smear detail, fog contrast, and throw a haze across the eyes. It is the cheapest sharpness you will ever get back. Wipe the lens with a clean cloth, a shirt hem that is not sandy, or the cloth you already use for glasses. Wipe both cameras if you switch. Then take one frame before you change your hair, your shirt, or your opinion of your face.

A smeared lens and a beauty filter together are a common pair. The filter tries to hide the smear by smoothing the whole face, and the jaw slider comes along for the ride. Clean glass removes the excuse. If the picture is still soft, check that you focused on the eye and that the phone was still. A phone propped on a soft bed will tip during the timer. Books are steadier. Your hand, held out and tired, is the least steady of the three.

Look at the frame at full size before you send it. The thumbnail hides smear, a hair across the lens, and a spot of food. Zoom to the eyes. If the eyelashes are a gray paste, wipe and reshoot. Do not compensate by sharpening the file until the skin turns to gravel. The glass was the problem. The face was not.

Face a window, and notice the wall beside you

Window light is the flattering, ordinary light. Face the window so the light reaches both eyes. A window behind you turns you into a silhouette and invites the phone to brighten your face into noise. A window far to the side leaves one cheek in a hard shadow unless a white wall fills it. Overhead room light, added on top of a good window, reintroduces the sockets under the eyes. Turn the room light off and let the window work.

The wall color is part of the light. Michel-Eugène Chevreul described simultaneous contrast in 1839: a color shifts the appearance of the color beside it. A saturated orange, green, or red wall next to your cheek will move the way the skin reads. A plain wall, or a wall you have already lived with in daylight, stays quieter than your face. If the only wall you have is loud, hang a neutral sheet or stand in a doorway where the trim is plain. You do not need the treatise. You need a background that does not recolor you.

Time of day still matters at a good window. Midday sun bouncing off a nearby building can be harsh. Early and late daylight are easier. If the window is the only option at noon, step back so you are not in the direct beam, and face the lit room rather than the sun itself. Then take two frames. Keep the one where you are not squinting. A squint is information about the light, not about your personality.

A short sequence, then stop

Set the phone, check eye level, wipe the lens, face the window, step back, and take a handful of frames. Change one thing at a time if something is off: distance, then height, then whether the window is in front of you. Changing your smile, your hair, and your shirt in the same breath teaches you nothing. Name the change before you shoot again. The sequence is short on purpose. Ten honest frames beat fifty performed ones.

Pick the frame where the eyes are open, the mouth looks like a mouth you use, and the nose matches the mirror at a conversation distance. Delete the ceiling shots and the ones where the lens was too close, so they do not tempt you later. If you are sending the picture to one person, send the agreed face. If you are feeding a profile, follow that profile’s rules about how new the file should be. The selfie method is the same. The job of the file changes.

A selfie is the wrong assignment when you need both shoulders square to a quiet background and you cannot get the phone far enough away. In that case the timer and a shelf still work, and the picture stops being a selfie in the arm’s-length sense. That is a good outcome. The goal was a fair file. The arm was never the point. When the shelf, the window, and the rear camera are doing the work, you can stand as you stand for a person, and the photograph can agree with that.