How to take the perfect couple selfie

January 30, 2019

We all love a shameless selfie. And the craze for splashing them all over social media isn’t ending anytime soon.

Phone makers like Huawei and Samsung take the front-facing camera very seriously. They’re making phones that are geared specifically towards selfie-takers. Here’s a quick look at 3 of the best selfie smartphones out there:

iPhone SE

iPhone SE has been hailed as having ‘the best single camera system ever in an iPhone’. Its 7-megapixel front camera puts many devices with a higher pixel count to shame.

Portrait mode puts the focus on you both, and lets you add subtle background blur for perfect bokeh effect shots. On top of that, Smart HDR detects faces and intelligently relights them, capturing more natural-looking contours and skin tones.

Huawei P40 Pro

Huawei P40 Pro packs a mighty 32MP front camera along with a whole bunch of smart sensors to perfect your selfies. Auto focus and pixel level enhancement looks after the details, ensuring great lighting, sharpness, and natural colour. Intelligent optimisation, enhances your skin tone, and keeps the textures natural and personal. And the IR Sensor makes sure you get the perfect bokeh effect.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

The Samsung S20 Ultra 5G is made for couple and group shots. As well as a 40MP front camera, it comes with a Smart Selfie Angle feature. When you add more folks into the picture, the camera zooms and adjusts focus so everyone looks great in the snap. And if you’re on a night out, the camera adjusts to lowlight. It shifts to 10MP, using those larger pixels to keep all your pics crisp and detailed.

Strike a selfie pose

OK, so you’ve got your fab camera phone and you’ve nailed the solo selfie. But couple selfies are a whole different ball game. What filters do you use? Which angle do you take it from? And is it even possible to fit 2 people into a photo without a big 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max. Or even the foldable screen of the Huawei Mate Xs 5G? First things first, think about the look you’re trying to achieve:

Traditional selfie
Where you both beam up at the camera with the look of love.

Smoochie selfie
Steal a kiss on the cheek or mix it up with a full-on snog.

The ‘Follow Me’ selfie
This trend was started by travel blogging couple Nataly Zakharova and Murad Osmann. Now everyone is showing off their travels with this enticing ‘led-by-the-hand’ shot.

Feet selfie
You could be in hiking boots about to explore the jungle, or entwined on the beach. This is basically any shot that contains legs only.

Mirror selfie
Usually taken in a bathroom or bedroom before you go for a big night out. This is the best way to get the full length shot.

If you want to really make an impression with your couple selfies, get stuck in when you’re on your hols. You don’t need to worry about finding a Wi-Fi connection or the cost of sharing them. Because with Go Roam you can get online in over 71 destinations. Grab your phone and your other half. Check out these pro tips from some of the best couple travel bloggers out there:

Gaz and Beth – Enjoy the Journey

“Gaz hates the selfie culture. But every now and again when we’re somewhere really cool, or it’s a really special moment that I’d like to remember, I grab the iPhone and snap a selfie. For example, we were in Cartagena, Colombia earlier this year. And it was one of the most romantic places we’ve ever been. So, when the sun set and the city lights came on, I took a quick pic of the two of us. So I’d remember the moment forever.”

Pro tip: Even if you’re not that into selfies, remember that they’re also about memories. It’s a great way to capture a romantic atmosphere.

Andrew and Amy – Our Big Fat Travel Adventure

“Travel is a huge part of our lives. And we take thousands of photos to keep a record of our journey and share adventures with our readers. As we run a couple travel blog, we take plenty of ‘usies’ wherever we are in the world. Be it on a beach, mountain, boat or in a city, cave or jungle. We’ve found that the most successful usies tell a story. There should be more to the photo than just our faces. So we pick backgrounds carefully. And make sure they help to capture where we are and what we’re doing at that moment in time. A long arm, selfie stick, or portable tripod can be very useful too.”

Pro tip: Think carefully about your photo – pick the perfect background and get the right equipment too.

Paula and Gordon – Contented Traveller

“We do it when we are the only ones around. Or when we are too embarrassed to ask someone else to take one of us. We had purchased a Three SIM for our phones when we got to London from Sydney, Australia. We didn’t expect the card would work throughout Europe, but it did. And yes we shared photos of us in front of Buckingham Palace, in front of the Mona Lisa – sad but true – with all of our friends on our social media channels. We even used it in New York, where we played tourist in Times Square.”

Pro tip: Selfies are so much more fun when they’re shared. Use your selfies as a way to tell your friends and family about your adventures.

Good Instagram captions

It’s true that a picture paints a thousand words. But if you want your couple selfies to really shine on social media, it’s time to get clever with your captions. Cute Instagram captions can provide context, tell a cheeky story and even add a sense of mystery. Why not maximise your social engagement by asking a question that gets people talking? And if you’re a keen blogger you can use the caption to direct people to your blog. The Instagram caption character limit is 2,200 characters. This is around 330 words, so you can really use your imagination to round up your post perfectly.

All you need to do now is get snapping and sharing. And if you’ve got more tips for the perfect couple selfie, tell us about them @ThreeUK on Twitter or Instagram.