Six Tips To Ensure You’ll Have Professional And Slick ‘Before & After’ Photos

1. Don’t make too much of a big deal about it! Limit photos to a maximum of four angles

• Take one photo with the camera facing directly front on
• Take one photo with the camera facing directly back on
• Take one photo with the camera facing directly side on (any side)
• Take one photo with the camera facing you at a 45 degree angle (half way between a front-on and side-on photo but favoring the front-on)

You do not need any more angles than above and if you don’t want to take as many as 4 photos, just simply take a front on photo (or possibly a 45 degree angle photo).  In my opinion the 45 degree angle photos are the most flattering.

2. Take progress photos along the way but not too frequently (think once a month)

If you’re taking progress photos once a week you will end up seeing a lot of fluctuations which are irrelevant to the overall progress you are making.  Once a month (at the same time of the month) is best.  That is, unless your aiming to achieve your goal in 10 days or something crazy like that!

3. Take the the before photos, progress photos and after photos at the same time of the day (and ideally the same day of the week/month)

Don’t take your ‘after’ photos just before going to bed if you took your ‘before’ photos just after waking up.  They will look different but not for the reasons you want them to look different.  In order for any type of tracking to be reliable you need to do the measuring (which in this case is taking photos) at standard times when there is least likely to be fluctuations caused by stress or tiredness.

4. Use basic digital photography techniques.

Find a very plain background (ideally white) and avoid including anything that will bring clutter into the photo such as pot plants, furniture, posters on the wall and so on.

If you want your photos to look professional then it’s best to ensure the photo doesn’t look like it was taken in your lounge (even if it was taken in your lounge)!

5. Wear a bathing suit or fitness clothing – don’t wear anything overly flash (or weird) though

Don’t wear a Borat suit, and guys, don’t wear hot pink shorts.  Just wear an ordinary bathing suit.  And make sure you wear that same clothing (and do your hair the same way) for each photo thereafter.

6. Don’t worry about how unflattering your ‘before’ photos are – they’re your before photos.

There reason you are taking these photos is to track the progress you will make.  Don’t try and make the ‘before’ photos look good!  Instead, take an accurate representation of how you look, and then wait till the ‘after’ photos for giving your best, photogenic smile.

Note: Holding up the front page of a newspaper has been said to be an effective way to ‘time stamp’ a photo.  The arguement is that if the date is not matching the newspaper date then the newspaper will be old and yellow.  This is actually flawed in the days of Photoshop and personally I think the ‘holding up newspaper’ photos can lack class, but that’s up to you.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Get Your Camera Out So You Can Be Sure You’ve Made Progress

Previously on Take Fit I have talked about the advantages and disadvantages of tracking progress using the bathroom scales, and using the bathroom mirror (published later this week). Today I want to talk about one of my preferred progress tracking methods, before & after photographs.

Before/after photos are definitely nothing new. They have been around for decades now as people want to visually see how far they have come. Bodybuilders, and other fitness professionals will always take ’status photos’ every now and then so that they can see any improvements or deteriorations from where they were last month, last year, etc.

There is nothing more exciting than comparing your own before & after photos. Before you embark on your journey towards six pack abs, or larger msucles or just simply losing weight, make sure you take some before photos.

Some people avoid doing such a thing because they are embarrised by the way they look. This is understandable but now that you can buy digital cameras with self timers there is no reason why such an excuse can still be used. If you want, you can take the photos and upload them to your PC without ever letting anyone look at them. Once you’ve taken you’re ‘after’ photos though, you’ll probably find you won’t mind showing your ‘before’ photos as they’ll prove just how much you’ve achieved.

If you really want to motivate yourself though, why not post the ‘before’ photos up on an Internet forum or (in an even bolder move) show your friends and family. Whoever sees the before photos will want to know what the results are – that way you’re much more likely to treat your goal seriously. If all you do is upload the photos to a hidden folder on your PC, the motivation to succeed is significantly diminished.

Another advantage of taking photos is that you’ll have a reference from then on which you can refer back to at a later time. This can help with tracking your ongoing fitness goals a lot more than just using your memory. And it will ususally be a better reference than the family photo albums.

Look out for an article to be published later this week which will outline some tips to be followed when taking these kinds of photos.

Popularity: 1% [?]