How To Take A Perfect Butt Selfie - Autostraddle

Welcome to Butt Week, friends! An entire week dedicated to butts and butt-adjacent stuff: how-tos, thoughtful essays, original art, pop culture critiques, music and more! You are absolutely not ready for this and yet it is happening to you, right now. Today Vanessa will teach you how to take a perfect ass selfie!

A butt selfie is a special gift. Butts are so good, and to capture your own via the trusty lens of a smartphone camera is a true accomplishment. All butts are perfect for selfies, and all butt selfies are to be celebrated. But(t) — even the most dedicated selfie photographer can struggle with getting the perfect butt shot. That’s what this guide is for. We are here today because we’re gay, and also because we’re going to learn how to take a perfect butt selfie together in honor of Autostraddle’s Butt Week and your perfect butt.

I’ve written quite a bit about taking photos of oneself and feeling hot as a personal journey. A couple of years ago the whole team weighed in on How to Take a Winning Thirst Trap and I gave my input. Last year I instructed you How to Choose Dating App Photos That’ll Have Babes Swiping Hell Yes, and I shared How I Claimed Being Thirsty as a Personal Lifestyle and Learned to Live My Dreams. One of the Autostraddle posts I am most proud of writing is my You Are Hot, Yes You manifesto: Your Homework For 2019 Is To Assume Everyone Thinks You’re Hot, I’m Serious. And just this past March, Molly and I told you that Selfies Are Gonna Save The World. I bring all this past work up to say, as always, my number one tip to taking a great selfie, of your butt or otherwise, is confidence. This list is going to address the nitty gritty of how to pose or angle your camera to achieve maximum butt goodness, but as cliche as it sounds, a butt selfie is best when you are feeling yourself and your butt. So slap your own ass and let’s get down to business!

1. Use a Mirror

It’s challenging to see your own perfect ass, so of course it’s tricky to get a full blown selfie of it. When it comes to butt selfies, a well placed mirror is your BFF. You can take a casual mirror shot, where you stand in front of a full length mirror and angle your camera so that you can see your face and also a hint of your butt, like, oops wow look at that my butt just snuck into this selfie of my face! You can also take a more pointed specifically ass-focused shot, where you pose your butt in the mirror exactly how you want it and angle your camera so your butt is center stage, up close and personal.

If you’ve got a mirror you can move around – like it’s not nailed to your wall or bathroom cabinet – you can actually put the mirror on the floor or lean it against a chair to achieve the exact height you want to reflect your butt at. And it can’t be overlooked that for this purpose, a floor-to-ceiling mirror – whether it’s at your gym, in your dance studio, in your lover’s bedroom, or perhaps in your very own home! – is ideal, the literal dream.

2. Invest in a Tripod

A mirror is an amazing tool when it comes to capturing your butt on camera, but sometimes you don’t want to rely on a reflection. In this case, I am a big fan of a tripod, or for those of us who simply are not going to buy a device to take photos of our own butts, a makeshift situation that mimics a tripod!

The benefits of a tripod are that you can move it wherever you desire, so you’re not relegated to taking your butt selfies to the bathroom or to the only room in your house with an appropriately situated mirror. This is particularly useful if you live with other people and the ideal mirror exists in the common space (unless your housemates are very supportive of butt selfies in which case, fun group activity! And also, get excited for step 5!). You can also take a tripod outside to get perfect lighting, and if you’re feeling adventurous and really want to grab a butt selfie next to a waterfall or amongst a field of wildflowers, a tripod allows you to do this! The other main benefit of a tripod is that most come with a little remote control clicker for your phone/camera, so you don’t need to be holding your phone for the photo and are free to pose your hands however you desire.

Like I said, if you’re absolutely not going to purchase a tripod for this purpose but still want to make use of some of these perks, a makeshift situation works just fine. I’ve been known to lean my phone against a pile of pillows on my bed to get the perfect ass shot, or simply lean it against the place where the floor meets the wall for poses where I’m kneeling or crouching. You can do this in nature too – who hasn’t balanced her phone against a tree stump or a perfectly smooth rock to get that ass-in-nature shot? – but be mindful that if your phone falls it won’t be tumbling into a body of water, lurching off a cliff, etc.