How to Take the Perfect OOTD Picture

Believe it or not, the question that I get asked the most as a blogger is how I take my OOTD pictures.  And if you’re not familiar with OOTD, it stands for outfit of the day.  :o)  Here's an example:

Since I get the question all the time, and I’m constantly emailing the tips to people, I thought I would just summarize it in a post and also let you in on a little behind the scenes. 

Last year, I challenged myself to wear something different every day for the whole year, so I took an OOTD picture all 366 days.  That’s a lot of pictures, so I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert now.  ;o)  Here are my tips!

O N E – Find the Best Lighting… Lighting is Everything

Natural light is the best light, and nothing indoors can compare to the great outdoors, so 99% of my OOTD pictures are taken outside.  The very best weather day you can ever have for these kinds of shots are overcast days when it is not raining.  They are an absolute dream.  That way you get the best natural light without the harshness of the direct sun.  If you live in a place where it is perpetually sunny, then the best thing to do is to find an area outside in the shade.  

In my case, our house faces north, so until around noon every day, our driveway is completely shaded by our house.  Therefore, I always try to take my pictures in the morning.  If I don’t get a chance to take them in the morning, I just head over to the other side of the house that is in the shade in the afternoon.  However, that side of the house is grassy, which isn’t my favorite backdrop, so I try to avoid doing that when possible. 

Here's an example of an indoor picture... while this one isn't too bad, my pants and shoes are so dark that they practically blend in with the carpet.

And here's an example of a picture outside on a sunny day.  While this one isn't in direct sunlight, it's definitely one that is a big no no because there are sun spots on my outfit where the sun was peeking through the fence.

T W O – Find the Best Location… Have a Clean Slate Under Your Feet

The last thing that anyone wants to see is a pile of junk somewhere in the background, or weird discolored ground beneath your feet.  I’ve found that our driveway works best for my pictures, because it’s a nice clean light grey.  It’s a different story when it rains, as the pavement darkens to an almost rust color (yuck) but there’s not much I can do on those days!  But anyway, my best advice is to try to find a place that’s open, consistent in color or pattern, and light in color so your outfit shines.

Here's an example of a bad picture.  It was pouring down rain on this day, so I took the picture in the garage, so the ground is filthy.

And here is another example of a bad picture... it was taken indoors on yet another rainy day, and I took it in my bathroom.  This was probably the worst OOTD picture I took last year.  Yuck!

T H R E E – Find the Best Pose for You

I use my right arm to hold the camera, and I always place my left hand on my hip so my left arm isn’t blocking any of the outfit.  When I'm posing with my little girlfriend, I like to hold her hand... when she lets me!  ;o)

F O U R – Stretch Your Arm as Far as It Will Go

This is the part where a lot of people who email me are stumped.  I have people tell me all the time that their arms just aren’t long enough to get their entire bodies in the frame.  I’m starting to think that maybe I have long arms?  I don’t know.  If you have this problem, you could probably remedy that by using a selfie stick, but I have never used one.

F I V E – Snap Snap Snap

I use my iPhone to take all of the pictures, so I simply hold it in my right hand and snap non-stop while slightly moving my arm all around because this allows me to get lots of different angles.  When it comes to this, practice makes perfect.  Since I’ve taken so many now, I can pretty much get the perfect shot in one take these days.  However, I still take anywhere from five to twenty pictures to achieve finding the best angle.  This takes all of about 30 seconds.  Believe me, if it took any longer than that, I wouldn’t have Olivia in so many of them!  Haha.

For this particular post, I took 16 pictures.  Here are a few of the unedited pictures (with the exception of the watermark that I added).

S I X – Choose the Best Picture

Scroll through all of the pictures you just took.  Delete the blurry ones, delete the ones that cut off part of your body, delete the ones that are taken at an odd angle, and then find your favorite of the ones that remain.  On this particular day, I honestly didn’t have any really bad ones, but I chose the second one from above because I liked the angle, and I liked Olivia's face the best. 

S E V E N – Edit

I use PicMonkey or the built-in Instagram editor to edit my photos.  I always zoom and crop them into a square, lighten, adjust the color, and sharpen them until they look just right.  Look at the difference between the unedited photo and the edited one.  So much brighter and crisper after the edits!

Unedited:

Edited:

Believe it or not, this entire process from start to finish takes all of about five minutes for me since I do it so often.  The more you do it, the faster (and better) you’ll be, too!

And for fun, you normally only get to see this:

But this is what it looks like from the outside:

And that’s it!  And a special thanks to my Instagram Hubs for taking the shots of Olivia and me as I took our OOTD picture this past Sunday.  

If you decide to give it a shot, be sure to tag me in any of your pictures on Instagram @lindsayssweetworld.

And if you want to see how I wore something different every single day last year, the post is here and the links to all 366 looks are below. 

January Recap

February Recap 

March Recap

April Recap

May Recap  

June Recap

July Recap  

August Recap

September Recap  

October Recap

November Recap

December Recap

Happy picture-taking!

*Linking up with The Pleated Poppy for What I What I Wore, Life in the Green House and Taz and Belly for Wardrobe Wednesday, Sydney Fashion Hunter for Fresh Fashion Forum, Pumps & Push Ups for Oh, Hey Girl! Link-Up, The Mummy Chronicles, Tucker Up, Shopping My Closet for Style Me Wednesday, Classy Yet Trendy for Trendy Wednesday Link-Up, The Blended Blog and Jessi's Design and Going the Distance for What's Hap-"Pinning" Wednesday.

.