Throwing a Self-Portrait Party

 Been doing a lot of reflecting on birthday. The decisions I’ve made, the mistakes, the hardships and the beautiful opportunities that still all lead me to where I am. Building a business that’s hard but I’m passionate about every day, being with a people I’m in love with and I’m so lucky to have in my life and treats me wonderfully every single day, sweet Murphy puppy, podcasting, and growing in relationships and personally. It’s a beautiful life as I continue intentional decisions to build the life that’s nothing like I could imagine- but it’s more

One way i celebrate every year is with photos- to see changes, to celebrate accomplishments, and to reflect on the year. 

So for today, I have my Hello 30 Birthday Photoshoot. In this post you will see:

Photos of the before and after

I’ll be pointing out what I wish I did differently. So basically critiquing my own photos. 

My phone camera setup

Where I got what

The space I’m working with (which really isn’t much!) 

And anything else that brought this all together. 

So let’s get started, shall we?

What you will need

A camera or a phone with a decent camera

I’m using a Samsung so it’s definitely not a new phone but it has a decent camera. There are too many people out there boasting about iPhone photography when there are loads of amazing android phones out there. It doesn’t have to be completely new but decent. 

A tripod

If you don’t have an extra pair of hands or want to do it yourself, get a tripod. In general, even if you have an extra pair of hands, time and time again I find myself dealing with people who don’t understand or know how to take photos. It’s easy with kids or teens because you can show them what to do, but you also can’t use them for that long. So I honestly would recommend getting a tripod. It’s small, sturdy, it moves at different angles, and I can use it with a camera or a phone. With a phone, you’ll also need a phone mount, in which case I recommend any 180-degree phone mount off of amazon. This is the one I’m using.

A wireless Bluetooth remote

You can get a Bluetooth remote for your phone, but if you’re using a camera you’re going to have to find one that works with your camera. Plenty of them are being made. You can usually find them off of Amazon, and they’re inexpensive and nifty to use! This is the one I’m using, it works with both iPhone and Android.

But if you don’t have a wireless remote, never fear because I will show you how to get around that later on.

A backdrop of your choice

This is more personal! Obviously, not everyone is going to choose a rose gold backdrop. I would love to do something with a black backdrop one day. Again, I got mine from Amazon, if you liked my background setup this is the one I used. BUT it excludes the hello 30 balloons. The balloon I got is from a seller that doesn’t exist anymore, so shop around on Amazon a week or two in advance to find yours. You don’t want to buy it a day before or two days before and find that there’s a hole in your balloon or it’s not the color you want, which has happened to me. So now I always buy my decorations two weeks in advance. 

Time

Since I did everything by myself, it took me a bit of time. Setting up the backdrop took me about 2-3 hours because you have to make the tassel banner yourself, hang stuff up, blow up any balloons you want, etc. It comes with so many decorations, I didn’t use them all. In the case of blowing up balloons, if you want to use them, I would suggest getting a balloon pump. A helium tank is expensive, so I just went for just a balloon pump because they’re inexpensive. A hand pump will cost you like $6 and an electric one is about $13-20 depending on if you get one for a single or dual. I went for a hand pump, it’s easy to use, effective, doesn’t make you tired. I didn’t blow up many balloons and found I barely liked them in my photos. So it’s really up to you!

Then it took me an hour to do my hair and makeup, and about 2-3 hours to take all the photos I wanted. It took me 1 full day to narrow down my favorite photos and edit them to perfection! You’ll see what I mean down below!

Inspo photo

You really need an idea ahead of time of what you want. Kind of like a vision or mood board. Get on Pinterest, create a board, and add photos to it of what exactly you want. If you find it’s all over the place, try to narrow it down to 2-3 of your favorites and go from there. This is my birthday photoshoot Pinterest board.

And the photos I narrowed it down to are: