How to Perfect the Art of Taking Facebook Photos: A Step-By-Step Guide

You may think that something as simple as taking profile photographs of yourself to post on Facebook (or any other social media website) is a simple process that requires very little preparation.  Well, that's where you're dead wrong.  If you don't take profile pictures properly, not only will your smiling, perfectly in-focus and naturally lighted photographs fail to capture the true depth to your character, but you will be dubbed a social pariah for the remainder of your sad, miserable life on the internet world.

But never fear, my tender newbs!  Auntie Keisha is here to guide you through this complex and delicate process so that you too may have the skills to let your true self shine through!

A quick note before we begin:  this guide is for webcams only.  If you are one of the folk who is lucky enough to have parents that will buy compact, brightly colored digital cameras for you, you will have to seek out another guide that will more poignantly illustrate the proper technique for standing in front of the bathroom mirror while holding the camera slightly above your head.  The same goes for cell phone cameras, which employ a similar technique as digital cameras but must include the entire phone and most of the reflected bathroom in the picture.

With that said, let's begin!

Step 1:  Primp!
You may think that, to best capture your personality, you should take a picture of yourself looking as natural and casual as possible.  WRONG!  Before you take your picture, it's very important to make sure that your pores are clear, your makeup is flawless, and your hair is that perfect balance of coiffed and messy that shows that you care about how you look but not too much.  This last part is VITAL.  If your hair is too well-kept, you might look shallow; but let it be too messy, and you'll look like a slob!

Don't have makeup?  Nothing a little tweaking with some pirated image editing software can't fix!

Without digital touch-up:

 

Ew, gross!

Now let's see it with digital touch-up:

 

Beautiful!

Step 2:  Accessorize!

Along with Step 1, Step 2 involves insuring you look your very, very best in your profile pictures, even if you've just been sitting around at home eating Cheetos all day!  This creates the illusion that you always look like that--no sweatpants or unadorned collarbones for you!  But, as in Step 1, this look must look effortless.  No matter how many hours you might have spent in front of the mirror prior to snapping the pic, it must look like you just stumbled in oh-so-casually and just happened to take a minute out of your busy day to upload a quick pic.  No biggie!

 Look at this slob!  No accessories at all!

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!

Step 3:  Working the Angles

Now that you're all beautified and ready for your close-up, it's time to actually sit in front of the camera and start working it!  Don't get too hasty, though!  A good angle is just as important as a good face.

When working the angles, your options are virtually limitless, but there are two basic approaches that will always give you a consistent, tried-and-true look.  The first is the seductive approach:  looking the camera square in the eye while your mouth is partially opened and your face is slightly tilted to one side (which should always be your good side, of course!).  If you aren't sure what you're good side is, just experiment until you find it!  Here are some examples of the seductive approach:

Sexy!

The second approach is the broody or thoughtful approach.  Use this when you want to emphasize how deep and contemplative you are.  The trick here is to never look directly at the camera--this shows that you're too deep in your own world to even care that your picture is being taken!  Here are some examples:

What a deep and philosophical person!

Remember:  never, under any circumstances, are you to position your face straight on at the camera or smile.  You're too disaffected for that!

Hideous!  This person is neither sexy nor thoughtful!

Step 4:  Spicing those colors up!

You may notice that your picture, with its natural lighting and realistic skin tones, looks totally drab.  It isn't indicative of your spicy personality at all!  But don't worry, this can be fixed with a little photo-manipulation!  Simply by sliding the color scale to one extreme or the other, you can create a portrait of a fun, quirky scenester or of a deep, contemplative thinker:

The one on the left says "What an alternative and individualistic person!" while the one on the right says "What an intelligent and no doubt creative individual!"

Neither of these suit your fancy?  Nothing applying a few generic special effects won't fix!

The possibilities are only limited by the number of free effects that come with your preferred image editing software!

Step 5:  Putting it all Together!

Now that you've perfected your makeup, your accessories, your angle, and your photo effects, it's time to produce the perfect profile pic that will tell everyone just how intriguing, beautiful, and creative you are with only minimal help from a computer!

Now THAT'S what I call a Facebook profile pic!

OH NO IT'S A GIRL COMPLAINING ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF TITS IN COMICS! QUICK, CLICK THE STUMBLE! BUTTON!

I'm gonna blow the dust off my keyboard and rant for a second, because this is my bloody blog and nobody reads it but me and my mother and sometimes Cody if he's been an especially good boy that day.  I'm going to rant about comic books so if you somehow stumbled upon this blog on accident (you poor bastard) and don't want to hear a woman with real actual boobies and (gasp) opinions about comics then you should probably stop reading now because only one of those things is going to show up on this page (hint:  it isn't the boobies).

Women are sexualized in comics.  I know it, you know it, even your dog knows it and he doesn't even have a concept of sexuality because he's an animal who's perfectly happy humping your footstool.  If this is news to you, you probably don't read comics (or, if you do, you probably don't read superhero comics).

If, somehow, by some magic, you have no idea what I'm talking about then let me refer you to this livejournal post which includes excerpts from a Wizard How to Draw series (the post is several years old but it still shows up as one of the first google results for "how to draw superheroes" so that's good enough for me).  While the post itself was disturbing enough what really irked me were some of the comments from guys whining about how the gals who were complaining just need to shut up because sex sells and comics are mostly read by guys anyway and it's fantasy and it's supposed to be exaggerated and hey, now, guys are idealized in comics too and rar rar rar Idon'thavegirlypartssoI'mnotoffendedandIlikecomicssoobviouslyyouarewrong.

I'm not stupid; I know that sex sells.  And I know that the super hero genre was basically created to pander to socially awkward guys who wanted to insert themselves into larger-than-life fantasies where they have super powers, huge muscles, and are surrounded by hot, lusty women (why else would so many superheroes have a "mild mannered" secret identity?).  And I know, too, that traditionally girls didn't read comics because they were a "boy thing".

But gender roles are changing.  Despite the continuing stereotype that girls don't read comics, I'm not the only girl in the comic shop anymore.  And I have money.  For comics.  That are for me and not a gift for my brother/father/male cousin/son/uncle/boyfriend/boyfriend's brother/male prison inmate who has become my pen pal.


Girls are reading comics all the time.  Hell, girls are even starting to WRITE comics!  WHOA BAM!

But like everything that girls start doing that was traditionally a "guy thing", we're mucking things up for everybody with our lousy complaints and opinions.  You'd think that, in a subculture which revolves around escaping into a fantasy world where you're a hunk who can talk to women, real, actual girls with real, actual girl parts who are actually excited to talk to you and can actually talk about stuff you're interested in instead of shoes and makeup (because that's all we talk about, you know) would be a godsend.  But nooooo...we girls have to ruin everything by complaining about how super heroines are unrealistic and sexualized and oooooooh!

I don't want to read a comic where there's a tit or ass shot on every page.  I don't want to have to pretend not to be offended by the giant, unrealistic bozongas on Power Girl (which is why I've never read Power Girl) or the fact that a woman who is supposed to be physically fit, agile, and powerful has hardly any musculature and a pair of big, round chest melons that never seem to sag or fall down into her armpits even a little bit (trust me, I have DDs, they don't look like this [and, besides, that's just poor design--her sternum is WIDE open if someone decided to shoot and/or stab her...]).

But I want to read comics.  I want to hand my money over to the companies that make comics.  And I want to tell my friends about comics that I love.  Comics that aren't all Vertigo titles.  Comics about superheroes.

What irks me is that even former DC president Paul Levitz talks about girls not reading comics like it's beyond everyone's control, like girls just don't like them they way a little kid might not like broccoli so it's no use trying to get girls to read comics (at least not superheroes--girls have been flocking to the less misogynistic genres like Vertigo's comics, proving that it isn't the comics they hate).  But we're sitting here telling you that, yes, we want to read your comics.  We want to give you our money, and we're telling you exactly why we haven't given it to you yet.  Stop ignoring us and pretending like we're the ones ignoring you!

All I ask is that the characters that are supposed to relate to me--the characters in whose roles I'm supposed to want to insert myself--don't look like Playboy centerfolds.  I don't care if they have big tits, I don't even care if they hang out, just give me a couple fewer ass shots (or, hey, at the very least give me some more Batman ass shots; I'm not picky), a little more individual personality, and a little less using references from softcore porn.

I know you guys can do it.