Photo guides
How to take full body pictures of yourself with your phone
Most full body photos taken alone go wrong before the timer starts: the phone is too low, too close or tilted. Set it up properly once and every shot after that is easy.
The short version
- Prop the phone upright at about your waist height.
- Stand about two metres away, with the camera on 1x.
- Keep the phone level and pointing straight at you, not tilted up or down.
- Frame it with the top of your head near the upper grid line and your feet just above the bottom edge.
- Use the 10 second timer or a remote, and take a lot of shots.
Find something to prop the phone on
A small tripod with a phone clamp is the easiest option, and a cheap one does the job. Without one, you need something that holds the phone upright at the right height. A wall or ledge with a stack of books works, so does a bench with your bag behind the phone, a railing, a cafe table, or the phone wedged against a water bottle.
Pick a spot you can see from where you're standing, out of the way of people walking past. A phone balanced on a ledge falls over more often than you'd expect, so give it something solid behind it.
Put it at waist height
Height matters more than anything else here. A phone at about your waist is roughly halfway down your body, so it sees your head and your feet from about the same distance and neither end of you dominates the photo.
The two common mistakes go in opposite directions. Leaning the phone against something on the ground means it points up at you, so the photo shows you from below with a lot of sky behind. Holding or propping it at eye level means tilting it down to fit your feet in, and then the bottom half of the photo fills up with ground. Waist height, pointing straight ahead, avoids both.
Stand about two metres back, on 1x
On the main iPhone camera (1x), with the phone upright, you need to stand about two metres from the lens to fit a standing adult in with a little room above and below. Any closer and you'll find yourself cutting off your feet to keep your head in.
It's tempting to switch to the ultra wide (0.5x) and stand closer. That lens stretches whatever is near the edges and corners of the frame, and in a full body photo that's usually your head and your feet. Use 1x and step back instead. If you can't step back, 0.5x is better than cutting your feet off, but keep yourself in the middle of the frame where the stretching is smallest.
Keep it level
Turn on the grid and the level in the Settings app, under Camera. With Level on, a short line appears in the middle of the screen when the phone is close to straight and turns yellow once it is. A phone that's tilted even slightly shows up as leaning walls and a sloping horizon, and it's the easiest thing to fix before you start.
Frame it: head near the top line, feet near the bottom
A full body photo has two landmarks. The top of your head goes near the upper grid line, or a little above it. Your feet go close to the bottom edge, with a sliver of ground underneath so they don't look cut off. Everything else is background, and the space above your head is what makes it read as a photo of you somewhere rather than a passport photo.
You can't see the screen from where you'll stand, so set the frame before you walk over. Put your bag or shoes on the spot where your feet will go, and check that spot sits just above the bottom of the screen. Then stand where the bag was.
Three full body framings. The feet always sit right at the bottom; how much space goes above the head is your choice.
Take the photo with a timer or a remote
The timer
The iPhone Camera app has a 3, 5 and 10 second timer. In recent versions of iOS it lives in the camera controls: swipe up above the shutter button, or tap the controls button at the top of the screen, then choose Timer. Use 10 seconds. Three is rarely enough to walk two metres and settle into a pose.
A remote
If you have an Apple Watch, the Camera Remote app is the better option, because it shows the camera's view on your wrist. You can check the framing from where you're standing and fire the shutter once it looks right. A small Bluetooth shutter remote does the same job without the preview, and many phone tripods come with one.
Take more shots than you think you need
Change something small between each one: weight on the other leg, a step towards the camera, look away, look back. Walking, turning and adjusting your clothes all give you photos that feel less posed than standing still and waiting for the countdown. Twenty shots for two keepers is normal.
No good spot to prop it? Use a mirror
A full length mirror is the fallback when there's nowhere to put the phone. Hold the phone at about chest height and off to one side so it doesn't cover your face, keep it upright rather than angled down, and stand far enough back that your feet are in the mirror with some floor below them.
When there's someone around to ask
Setting up a timer shot takes a few minutes. Asking a friend or a stranger is quicker, and they can follow you as you move. The catch is that most people put your face in the middle of the screen and cut your feet off.
Goodside fixes that part. Choose Full body, or a full body framing from the 127 in the app, and hand over your phone. The person holding it sees two marks on the screen, "Top of head" and "Feet", lines you up with them and taps the shutter. They don't need any photography skills, and your photos stay on your phone.