<div class="block">Capturing the perfect picture might not be as easy as might have thought. Fitz Henley, photographer and model, joined Cheddar News to provide a few tips on how to take the best possible picture to share with friends and family on social media.</div>

beWell

Be Well: How to Snap the Perfect Picture

Summer vacation is all about creating special memories and taking great photos, let you capture them forever. That's right. And to help you look your very best in those summer snapshots. We're getting a lesson and posing from photographer and model Vince Henley. Thank you so much for being here. So let's say we're at the Trevi Fountain, we'll put it up behind us with the magic of television there. We're in Rome, we're hanging out, we want to take the best photos, but you have some tips about the dos and don't of where to take a photo. Absolutely. OK. You know, now the summer is in full swing. People are out and about, they're trying to get the picture. Social media makes it where everybody's a photographer, but they have it on your phone. So it's exactly one thing you wanna remember is try to post somewhere where it's not so busy, busy things can kind of jumble up a picture and make it to where you the subject of the picture gets lost and where you wanna start, right? OK. So if we do have an iconic backdrop, we want to capture the fact that we're here how do we do that without, you know, using the? Yeah. Well, people do. Well, there's a couple of different ways and, uh, first of all, I would like to say, everybody clean your camera. Ok. That's the first thing. Now, if you're posing in front of something big, one trick to do is step away from this subject in the background to create a little bit of space. Sometimes you won't always get the full picture if you're right next to something as grand as your backdrop here. So taking a few steps away 10 20 paces even can allow it to become your background and get some more depth from that. Absolutely. You can actually see what you're standing in front of. Exactly. OK. Now what about lighting? I know that's important as well. Yeah. So lighting can be your friend or your enemy. So for it to be your friend, you want to be facing the light, you want the light to illuminate, you hit your face. Exactly. OK. If the light is behind you, your photos will tend to be over exposed and you will lose a lot of the detail in the background. And that's the same with like the sun with windows any time, make sure they're not behind you, any light source at all. OK. Ideally, you want to put it in front of you rather than behind you. OK. And what do I do with my hands? Uh The question of the day because I feel as though everybody does it this thing, but I feel like it's not me, you know, not everybody is a professional model and feel comfortable taking pictures. Yes. Um, for those of you who aren't a one handed can work. Ok? Um but this is a great place to add a prop for a guy or lady. You can do a drink a bag in the hand, ok? If you don't have any props, utilize your wardrobe, you can, but in a jacket, you can roll a cuff that very. I want you to do that. You have people next to you like and if you're gonna do that, make sure that you're not just standing shoulder to shoulder, make sure you're creating some layers so that the picture looks more. OK, let's give an example. Can you show us like what should we be taking a picture together? Do I turn to him? Do I not? What should I do? Yeah. So angles are the best. So any kind of angle slightly rather than shoulder to shoulder it? Oh So like, OK, you got your phone with take some photos and we'll try it out. So like this like a V almost, right? Almost. Yes. So she can actually take a step forward and you can overlap her shoulder like this, right? And then you can kind of angle in a bit in this way it causes the V and you guys are really more of a union and a wall you wanna get back, we wanna be in Rome. So angle, I'm behind a little, that's awesome. Now, if you have something like this backdrop here that's gonna be lower than your head, it's a good opportunity to bring the camera up a bit right to get the thing. Now, generally this is a, not a good idea to do because you're gonna get a lot of the ground. So you wanna stay even with your eyes or a little above. Now, what about those people that take the shot like this? I find a lot of younger people go to take my picture and it's low and I'm like, I don't think that's gonna look good. So there's, there's two ways to look at that, right? Taking a selfie or close picture from beneath your face is very unflattering. You get the nose, you get the the eye shadow, you get just an unflattering picture of yourself. Uh creating a little bit of height can make the eyes look a little bit bigger. My fiance calls them Disney eyes. It elongates the face, it gives you more of an angle. These are all good ways to, to, you know, capture, you know, the full moment of the picture in a way that you're gonna be happy with it later. That's one of the things that don't make me happy is everyone being stiff like sure they just look uncomfortable. How do you fix that. Well, some people are just uncomfortable. So I'm a tickler. I'm a tickler because I feel like then I get somebody to like legitimately laugh. I kind of probably hate taking pictures with me because they know I'm going to tickle them. So what you can do is you can create a moment like that. You can tickle somebody make it authentic. You can say this is one of my favorites. I say panties and you see that it works, right? So creating, creating a little bit of levity is really good. Also, you can put an arm on the shoulder, hand around the waist. Um If you are posing with a group of people. Yes. Again, bring somebody in for in front, bring somebody back. I always go to I'm 52 but I go to go like this from like when I was in a sorority, I'm like ready to. But it, it, it, it's, it's similar to the one that we see on social media a lot where the ladies, right? That thank you Fitz Henley model and photographer. We appreciate your time.