Three ways to capture the perfect selfie

We live in a selfie-obsessed world. 

With over 93 million taken every day selfies are all over Social Media, but increasingly, they’re big in the mainstream media too. Today it seems that everyone who’s anyone will go to extreme lengths to contort themselves at full stretch into a tiny frame to get that perfect selfie, so we thought we’d take a look at three ways that will help you keep up with the celebrities.

It all started as a bit of fun, a photograph of your beautiful self taken with a Smartphone and shared with the world on social media. But, inevitably, as selfies move from the ordinariness of social media into the glamorous mainstream, the selfie image has had to up its game.

As Smartphone camera quality improved selfies have got better, but it’s not just the camera quality that’s keeping our snaps up there with the celebs.  There’s some cool touch-up Apps that can quickly digitally enhance your selfie before it goes “live”, and a bunch of Selfie Sticks that make that otherwise awkward looking selfie look pretty damn cool. So, let’s have a look at three ways to snap that perfect selfie:

1.  Choose Selfie-Smart Phone

How many times have you been in that perfect location and wanted to capture the moment forever for it to pass you by because your phone’s just not up to the job? For a start, you’ll need a phone with a front facing camera.

You can take a Smartphone self-portrait with a back-facing camera, but, if you do, you can expect quite a few duck-faces and because of the ludicrous angles involved pictures of the takers arms. If you want to take great pictures of yourself it’s a damn sight easier with a forward-facing camera - so make sure your Smartphone has got one. 

Cameras clever enough to focus automatically at arm’s-length grab the best selfies.  The auto-focus gives you the added advantage that they allow you to get the shot off quickly and before that annoying bloke walking past scoffing a kebab ends up ruining it.  For a cool selfie a good auto-focus feature is something to look for in a Smartphone too.

2. Don’t struggle (you’ll look weird) get a Selfie Click-Stick

Most people’s arms are too short for the perfect selfie, but you can get around this particular human failing by extending your reach with a Selfie Click-Stick.

The designers say that Click Sticks will change the way you take Selfie photos forever. Well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit, but they’ll certainly let you take selfies in places that you otherwise wouldn’t have thought possible. 
Once you have physically attached your phone to the bracket on the end of the Selfie Click-Stick the electrical part works by tapping into your Smartphone’s headphone socket. This activates a button on the stick that operates the shutter switch on your phone. Now, when you’re ready, all you need to do is try and look cool, and click...

The larger Click-Sticks on the market are ideal to pop in the car, or to use at home, but if you’re out and about there are ones dinky enough to pop in your pocket. We like this Click-Stick Selfie-Gadget from Thumbs Up which thankfully has no Bluetooth pairing problems, or batteries to wrestle with and works with most Smartphones. 

3. Download some cool photo-Apps

Celebrities on TV and in magazines cheat all the time by having a make-over before they dare reveal themselves on Breakfast Telly. The great and good also routinely have themselves enhanced with Photoshop before they're exposed in glossy magazines – so what’s wrong with the rest of us making the best of our ourselves?

There are tons of Apps out there to help you manipulate your selfie. Everyone knows that you can get rid of red-eye pretty easily, but why not get those teeth whitened too and practically everything else buffed, honed and toned while you’re at it?  These clever little Apps such as Facetune, Photowonder, or CreamCam are free, or cost next to nothing and have the power to magic away all those little blemishes, pimples, spots and freckles at a swipe.  Skin perfecting Apps can even give your hair a little extra sheen and even tame fly-away hair.  

It’s all a bit mad, and there are even Apps that can make you look taller and slimmer, and fake lovely skin. So, for that perfect selfie, treat yourself to a decent Smartphone, download a few nifty Photo-Apps and get a Click-Stick. 

Sources: Google, Tech-info-Graphics, Samsung, American Psychiatric Association