Shoot a better USi (Group Selfie)

Caption this! Taken in Regents Park, these are Argentine Tango dancers enjoying the outdoors just hours before the Olympic Closing Ceremony. Two weekends every year enthusiasts of ballroom dancing (Saturdays) and Argentine Tango (Sundays) get together to dance on the Broadwalk of Regents Park in aid of trees for the Royal Parks. Organised by Kele Baker who has choreographed many Strictly Come Dancing tango routines, this year it was also the last weekend of the 2012 Games

Back in July I was asked to give some quotes on how to shoot group selfies for a high profile brand which turned out to be Coca Cola. My direct quotes were edited out in the end. This type of thing isn’t personal, happens during copy editing for all kinds of reasons (none of which make the journalists particularly happy) but I’ve pasted my advice below after the final copy.
http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/stories/choose-happiness/6-steps-to-the-perfect-group-selfie/

Background matters!

A less complicated area behind your group will give a bigger impact. If you’re shooting yourselves by a landmark or beautiful screen, angle the selfie so there is as little as possible going on behind your group and the interesting things beside you. If you’re in bright sun use the fill flash option. This will prevent the deep shadows on your faces and will stop your surroundings looking too bleached out.

Make the selfie angle say something about your group.

Shooting downwards makes you look sweet, cute or sexy. Upwards makes you look strong and proud and shooting on the diagonal makes the viewers think you’re active and trendy.

Heads in a line is rarely fine. If you mustering up for a shot then do so at a diagonal to the camera abd all look at the same off-camera spot.

This makes your friend’s eyes travel along your faces which makes the shot more interesting.