Show & Tell: DIY Headshots with a iPhone

Hello!



So, today's post isn't really craft related so much as blogging related. I am not one for "selfies." In fact, I wish I could stop Facebook from sharing my profile picture every time I change it. I feel very self aware when people are commenting on pictures of me even if they are compliments. However, many people out there that have blogs or professional social media profiles (i.e. LinkedIn). Having a headshot not only makes your profile look more professional, but it also allows your audience to relate to with what you're posting.


If you're like me, you're probably not going to pay someone for a headshot for a blog you do part time. That doesn't mean you should never get a professional headshot. I absolutely find professional pictures are worth the money spent. I know from experience that anyone that can get two kids smiling at the same time deserves sainthood.


If you are in need of a simple headshot, you can get it accomplished right in your living room. I had been wanting to update my headshot for a couple of months. My first headshot was done with my nice DLSR, remote and tripod in my craft room. The background was a white wall, and I diffused the light with some wax paper taped to a window. It turned out pretty good.


However, I now look a bit different..well..mostly just more wrinkles. I wanted a updated picture. However, my remote's batteries are dead and the tripod is in the attic. I've stopped using my DLSR over the past year out of laziness and, because, my new iPhone 6 has a pretty darn good camera. It's convient to have it with me all the time. I decided to give it a go for my updated headshot.

DIY Headshots from an iPhone

Supplies

Camera. I used my iPhone 6, but of course you could use any sort of digital camera.

Natural Light

Diffuser for Natural Light. I used a white curtain already hanging on my window. You can also use a sheet or strip of wax paper. 

Neutral Background 

Optional: Selfie Stick and/or Timer. I also use Photoshop Elements to blur my background.

Directions

1. Get Ready. 

Since you're going through the trouble of doing a headshot, of course you want to get yourself all dolled up. I don't wear make up unless I have somewhere important to be, so I waited until I had a reason to get ready. I work from home so my usual attire is sweats and t shirt. A uniform I'm rocking as I type this. You will want to put on a nice shirt. Simple solid colors work best. You also will want to keep jewelry simple.

2. Find a Location.

Natural light is your friend, so you want to find a location in your house that is getting good light but not overly harsh light. For example, you probably wouldn't want to use a east facing window in the morning, but you may find the same window okay as the day goes on. You will also want to look at the area around the window you choose. The background should be mostly free of distractions. A blank neutral colored wall is best. If you can't find that, you can try to rig something up with a sheet hanging behind you, or if you have Photoshop Elements, you can try to blur the background after the picture is taken. (I ended up doing this with my pictures to moderate success. One looks a bit strange because the blur was so strong, but otherwise it worked pretty good). 

My favorite chair and the white curtain was the perfect set up for me.

3. Diffuse the Light. 

You will want something to diffuse the light. I have an actual light diffuser disc, but it's with the tripod in the attic. I decided to instead pull the white curtains on my South facing window. It worked as a great diffuser for the light. You want to diffuse the light because it creates softer more flattering light. 

 

4. Position Yourself & Shoot...a lot.

 

I decided to sit in my favorite chair for my pictures. When you take pictures, you will want to face your light source. I just extended my arm out and took pictures that way, but if you have a selfie stick, this would be a good time to bust it out. As for what type of poses you chose, that's going to be up to you. I was a old time photographer for a summer (crazy fun summer job, by the way) and I learned quite a bit about flattering poses. As you probably have noticed from the "selfie" craze, pictures taken from above are more flattering. Just don't get crazy with your angles. I also did some research of different headshots to find poses I liked. I wanted something that was more relaxed and not too formal. 

 

Since we're in a digital age, we can afford to take a lot of pictures. So make sure you do! You will want to periodically stop and look as see what is working and what isn't working. Look out for distractions. I have a vase with pheasant feathers on my end table, and I found that at one angle it looked like I had feathers coming out of my head. I also had to be mindful if my hair was sticking up or my jewelry was caught on my shirt. Be detail oriented when reviewing pictures. In my blog picture, I have my hand on my head. I keep looking at it, because in some ways it looks like I have an appendage growing out of my head. I decided I didn't care. :)

 Lamp growing out of my shoulder.

Strange angle and some cra-cra eyes.

Another important tip to follow (and I found it very hard to follow it myself) is to make sure you're looking at the camera. On an iPhone, you probably will find yourself looking at the image on the screen. That means that your eyes are going to be looking slightly down in the picture. The camera is above the image, so make sure you look at the camera not the image on the screen. Also, make sure the screen is focused on your face, not your hair or some object in the background. Otherwise you'll have an out of focus picture. You can pick the location to focus on by tapping on the screen.

 

5. Edit

 

You can use an online program such as Picmonkey to edit your pictures. I have Photoshop Elements, and I love it. I used this tutorial on how to blur the background, and it worked wonderfully. I also have some of the CoffeeShop actions that I use. Finally, I'm a big Scott Kelby fan. I have used his books for years when editing pictures. I try not to go too crazy. Reality is I have some wrinkles, terrible under eye circles and blemishes. I'm just going to have to live with them and it doesn't do anyone out there, including my daughter, a service to pretend that I don't. 

This was a good blurred background. I minimized the heat thermostat in the background and the railing on my stairs.

Err. Not as good. Removing the door way was a bit more tricky and the section under my arm was hard to do.

So, there you have it. How to do a headshot with just your iPhone and different things around your house. Now you can create a professional looking picture without taking your sweats off.

Here's my final images. I tried both with and without my glasses. The glasses one is my "professional" one for my LinkedIn profile and the others are for my blog & social media. I'm set for another 5 years. :)
 

 

 

 

DIY Sunday: Children's Art Gallery

Hello There!

I'm really excited to show you this project! I've had it planned for a while. I often see in magazines and on blogs parents making an art wall for their children by using a matte and replacing the pictures periodically. I always thought it was kinda pain to take the frame down, remove the back and change the art. So I decided to create an art wall with just open frames and picture wire. I'm pretty excited by the way it turned out.

Children's Art Gallery



Supplies:

Old frames sans glass and backing (found most of mine at a thrift store for $13.00, however if you slowly collect them, I could see this being much cheaper if not free)
Spray Paint ($3.00)
Picture Wire ($2.00)
Staple Gun (had around the house already)
Binder Clips (or clothes pins $2.00)


My collection of random frames I found.

Total Cost: $20.00

Directions

Step One: Clean & Spray

Take all your frames and remove the glass and backs. Wipe down with a wet wash cloth. Spray paint with your chosen paint color. FYI: Places like Ace will do custom tint spray paint with any color they could do with regular latex paint. I used Rustoleum in white. It's a spray paint that has both a primer and a gloss enamel finish.


Frames in the middle of spray painting



Step Two: Staple & String

Decide where you want the wire to be. I put mine towards the top, about one-two inches from the top. Take your picture wire and staple one end to the back of the frame. Make sure you leave two inches or so sticking out from the staple. Tie the picture wire around the staple. Pulling tight, staple the wire to the other side of the frame. Cut the wire with a few inches sticking out, pull tight and knot. Repeat on all your frames.




Staple with little tail of wire sticking out.


Wire with knot

Step Three: Hang Your Gallery

There are several ways to decide where to put your frames. I've seen several tutorials using kraft paper. You cut the paper the same size as the frame and tape the paper on the wall. That way you can see how everything looks on the wall and reposition if needed. I never have done this because a) that's a lot of kraft paper and b) that's a lot of cutting. Time and money I don't want to spend.

I am not a measuring person as you may know. I hate to measure fabric or spend the time to center things. I prefer to just wing it. However with my gallery upstairs, I thought I would be all exact and measure things out. I placed frames on the ground so it looked pretty and measured where everything would go. It was a disaster! I ended up moving almost every frame. The stupid gallery took me like eight hours!

So, this time, I decided to use a method I saw in Pinterest. You would put a bit of toothpaste on the hanger and put it on the wall. A bit of toothpaste would remain where you should put the nail/screw. I used some diaper cream I had nearby. It worked GREAT. I will never hang a picture frame another way.

So, I placed my gallery on the floor. I used the floor tiles as my guide for how wide I could go (I knew the place I had chosen was three tiles across so I arranged my gallery on the floor within three tiles wide.) I took a picture of my creation. Then I used the picture on my camera as a guide and did the toothpaste guide idea from above.

It was so fast. The entire gallery took me maybe 10 minutes. I've never been able to hang a bunch of frames that fast.


Empty wall ready for frames


Gob of diaper cream ready for hanging.


The wall after putting the frame up to it. Ready for a nail.


My arrangement on the floor.


Gallery on the wall.


Finished Wall!






One frame was a causality of my dogs chewing.

You're finished! Now you just need to clip your budding artist's creations to the wire! I used binder clips to match the wire, but something like clothespins would work too.

DIY Wednesday: Photo Wall Collage

We are still moving into our new house. Mostly just doing the decorating bit now. I had tons of silver picture frames left from my old house and I decided to create a collage on the wall.

The "Before" Wall

The wall is pretty blah. I think I might paint the wall once I get the house completely unpacked.

Step One: Set Out Frames















Now. If you read any magazine, they give the great idea of tracing the frames onto kraft paper and putting that on the wall. The probably would work, but I didn't want to go through the trouble of cutting it, so I did this process. I first laid out the collage. The center frame is going be centered at 60 inches up from the floor and in the middle of the wall. I then measured each frame from the center frame and based the height of the frame based off the center frame. I ended up with a piece of paper that looked like this:















Okay. So is this really easier than just grabbing some kraft paper? eh. I don't know. Probably not but it's cheaper when you're doing such a large collage.

Step Two: Get Help

I had a special supervisor to my project.
















Step Three: Prepare Frames.

I probably could have done this before laying out my college and measure (maybe easier if I were to do it first) but I was waiting for my huge Shutterfly order of all types of new prints. So when you get your pictures, go somewhere clean to put the pictures in the frames. (In my case, that meant trying to find a dog hair free zone.....not easy) Clean the glass both inside and out with glass cleaner. Let glass dry completely before touching a photo.

Now, if you're like me, you will be hunting down every frame in the house for this project. Many of my frames just had stands, they didn't have anything to hang them from. Well, that's easy to fix! Go to your local retailer and grab some metal picture hanging brackets. They can be found by the frames or in the hardware department. To attach the bracket, you won't be able to use the nails (unless you have a wooden frame of course). I grabbed my hot glue gun. I measured the center 1 inch down from the top of the frame. Then I hot glued that sucker right on the back of the frame. Worked great!







Don't have the sawtooth hangers? Don't want to spend the extra money (they are actually like 2$ for a pack)? You can also use a little piece of ribbon!



Thankfully I had a supervisor to keep me in line and on task



Step Four: Measure and Drill

I used drywall screws with my wall. I first measured out the location of each hole...leave a pencil mark and drill that baby in. I slowly put frames on the screws to see how things were going.















Finished! Admire your beautiful work!

Idea Thief: Slide Curtains

Hello!

So those of you who know me, know I love photography. Loves it! These curtains are absolutely fantastic! I'm officially on the hunt for slides after seeing this!

Visit Craftster for Tutorial!

DIY Wednesday: Photo Backdrops

DIY Wednesday: Photography Muslin Backdrops

Hello There!

Finally, a project I’ve actually done! As you may have noticed, I do photography as a hobby in addition to my various craft things. I have been collecting photography supplies for 6 years now and have quite the collection of things for various hobbies. (I have been told by my husband I’m not allowed to pick up any more hobbies beyond the ones I have, since I usually feel the need to go and buy all the cool accessories that go with the hobby…but I have been playing around with the idea of learning to decorate cakes…)

One of the first things I purchased after my first 35 mm camera in high school was three backdrops. I got all three off E-Bay. I was back from my first year of college for the summer and spent all summer tutoring a neighbor in algebra just to pay for these stupid things.

If you know anything about backdrops, the good ones are obscenely expensive. I mean…seriously expensive (just Google muslin backdrop sometime). The ones I got off E-bay were cheap for a reason. I got this completely useless neon yellow and red one and a “muslin” backdrop that was supposed to be a smoky grey. It was instead a badly faded clearly homemade grey backdrop. (Probably with RIT dye I would come to discover)

Well, I’ve never used these stupid things. The three backdrops are quite pointless. They are too bright for any practical picture. (but in my youth I didn’t know what I was doing…well, to be honest, I still don’t for the most part…)

So, I’ve thought about buying a nice muslin backdrop for a while, but I just can’t bring myself to do it for two reasons. 1) I don’t take much indoor photography. 2) The type of photography I take inside doesn’t really need the look of a muslin backdrop. I have two seamless backdrops (black and white) and they work great. The money I would use on a backdrop is better spent a 101 other things.

So, last summer I was quite bored and decided to see if I could create my own backdrops. I really think it was more for the challenge than actual necessity. I found this tutorial on DIY Photography. It was pretty instructive. I tried using RIT dye and the backdrops were serious blah. The colors wash out pretty bad and there isn’t anything really pretty any of them. (I should note that I used king size bed sheets instead of muslin just because I don’t have a fabric store in the near vicinity)

So, I decided to try my own method. I went to the store and got random spray paint. (Pink, Purple, Metallic Bronze, Tan, Light Purple). I then soaked the sheet. I was hoping that the color would blend better if the sheet was wet and I would avoid a sharp spray paint line. I laid the sheet out on my driveway and spray painted it. With some of the sheets, I bunched up the sheet before spray painting in order to add some dimension to the sheet. A couple others I tried to create that look on my own by applying more or less paint. After I was done with one color, I hung dry the sheet on my clothesline and then tried adding a different color with the same process.

Here are the results: I did several color combinations. Some I like and some are just plain ugly. Keep in mind some of these had color left over from the stupid RIT dye. A few of the sheets were actually twin sheets I had laying around the house. I figured I may as well try out the colors before I purchased more paint and another sheet. I figure I can use them for kids and babies.

The Good:
Pink (I believe it was called ‘ballet slipper’) and Purple: I figure this would be good for a little girl.

Red with a splash of brown mixed in (This one turned out much better than the neon red one I already have)

Not Pictured: Metallic bronze and brown (This one looks absolutely fabulous in person, but when you photograph it, it loses some of it’s luster)

The Not So Good:
Tan and Blue (okay, so the tan is from the RIT dye. I didn’t know what to add with it, so this poor sheet got blue. I feel bad for it)

Not Pictured: Plain Purple (it’s not particularly bad, but it’s not really interesting either)

Even though I have these backdrops and wouldn’t mind photographing someone in front of them, I still haven’t used them beyond forcing my dogs to model. I think I’m safe never buying an actual expensive muslin backdrop. I’d rather get accessories for my new digital SLR.