Selfie VS Professional Portraits

We have crossed milestones in the effort of capturing expression through portraits, in paintings of the elites by masters like Rembrandt and Davinci and through photography. In recent years, it has become easy and immediate through selfies or by a professional photographer. What works for you, a selfie or a professional Portrait?

Advantages & Disadvantages of Portraits and Selfies

Lets discuss the advantages of a selfie vs professional portrait so you can decide what make sense for your needs?

What is beauty? On the covers of Vogue and GQ, we see models who are years away from becoming adults dictating our social norms. A 15yrs old male wearing a business suit to sell fashion to middle-aged professionals. A 14yrs old female wearing a couture dress, making us believe that younger is the definition of beautiful.

Portraits and selfies are in battle, the winner is whom or how do you want to brand yourself? Is it the photographer who has had a career, experience and ability to capture the essence? Or the person directing his/her own angles while viewing at yourself?

Portrait photography is the art of capturing individual expression. Selfies let you troubleshoot angles to satisfaction. Then use filters to enhance or remove any so-called flaws.

The following are five advantages and disadvantages for choosing selfies vs professional portraits of yourself.

Advantages of Selfies:

1. Free
2. Its your style, you love it
3. Immediate gratification
4. One can trouble-shoot to satisfaction, you have full control
5. Lots of filter option such as Instagram and other software solutions.
   
   

Disadvantages of Selfies:

1. Images produced may look lifeless
2. Everybody can recognize a selfie
3. May not suit your profession or personal brand
4. Its a lot more work than anticipated, some feel quite discouraged by the experience
5. You might like it one day and then realized that you didn’t like it and its posted all over the internet.

Advantages of Professional Portraits:

1. Let the professional help you with his or her years of experience.
2. A great portrait is a reflection of all that is you. Your loved one’s will smile by recognizing you in your headshot.
3. Its much easier than selfies, depending on who you hire its a wonderful experience.
4. You know what you are going to get, because the photographers portfolio will be more or less a representation of the final work.
5. Professional editing instead of gimmicky filters.

Disadvantages of Professional Portraits:

1. Its more expensive than selfies.
2. You may chose the wrong photographer.
3. Someone else is producing it.
4. You might actually like the filters for selfies, better than professional editing.
5. It will take about a week to have your final product.

How to Choose a photographer

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