We love taking our own personal brand photography just as much as any photographer, but should you hire a photographer or take your own photos? First, we have to talk about the benefits of hiring a photographer so you can decide if those benefits are worth booking a local professional! A photographer can help you feel confident, organized, and fluid when you don’t know how to pose on camera.

If you don’t want to bring a tripod, handle the lighting, think of creative poses, and edit your own images… then heck yes you need to hire a photographer! That’s how we got these amazing images by @moosestudio at Studio Noire Noir in Salt Lake City! 

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But what if those tasks don’t seem too bad? Maybe you don’t mind bringing your tripod, you love personal brand photography, and you don’t want to deal with hiring a professional every time you take pictures? Well we do NOT blame you! That’s why we often take our own pictures 🙂

Which items do you need to take your own personal brand photography?

to take your own photos, you’ll need a tripod, a smart phone or camera, a trigger to take the photo, and a list of prompts or poses to stunt in your photos!

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What skills do you need to take your own images?

to take your own photos, you need to understand lighting and composition to determine the look and feel of your shoot! you also need to know how to edit photos in tools like Adobe Lightroom or photoshop!

What are your favorite prompts for couples self-portraits?

We have a lot of go-to prompts! We like to mix between serious, romantic, goofy, and classic poses because those look lovely as prints on our wall or in our scrap books! Here’s a few posing ideas for couples self portraits:

Hold hands, step apart, and look at the camera with a serious face

This is one of the first prompts we do because it gets the serious poses out of the way! In this image, we are holding hands at the top of a cliff at San Onofre Beach Campgrounds in San Clemente, California. The sun is shining bring behind us to the left which makes the clouds pop and adds to the drama in this serious pose!

Sit down and have the other hug you from behind

Do not be afraid to sit on the ground in your self-portraits – even if you’re on top of a parking garage, on the sand by the beach, or in a field next to gorgeous spring flowers and chirping hummingbirds! When you sit on the ground, you can have your partner hang from behind you giving you kisses while grabbing your shoulder!

Pro tip: plan out your outfits in a way that helps you pop against the backdrop! For example, in the image below, we chose to wear black while shooting against a bright sky and a light colored parking garage!

Incorporate props into your photos for an added element!

Are you stuck shooting in your boring home? Do not feel alone – this was us for plenty of our shoots! One day the sun was shining with nothing but blue skies for as far as the eye can see…but we were too lazy to go outside for a photoshoot…so we grabbed some props from the dollar store and took pics in the window with a disco ball! That’s right, you can party like it’s 1975 with your self portrait photoshoot!

Reach your hands out to the camera for a more editorial/edgy look! (extra points if you make it a double exposure!)

You can go for an etherial look in your images if you reach out your hands towards the outer edges of the camera frame and keep your faces in the center of the frame! You could even shoot on a slower shutter speed to capture movement in your hands!

Bree likes to challenge herself in her photo edits, so she put one of our self portrait photos into an app called Procreate and created a “dragged shutter” double exposure effect using layers and the Apple Pencil and the Ipad Pro!

Bring faces close together and close your eyes

The best part of taking self portraits with your significant other is you get to get kisses, snuggles, and all the McLovin you can handle! (in public, don’t get any smart ideas!) Bree has such beautiful cheek bones, so we brought our faces close together to emphasize her side profile! To add to this pose, I added my thumb up to her chin and closed my eyes as we melted into each other’s arms. Low key…the moment was unforgettable. If you’re looking to get closer to your partner and capture the fire between you, please do me a favor and do this pose! We love how this photograph turned out!

During this photography phase, we often wore all black in order to pop against the bright beach sand and desert rock formations in Southern California. If you need a recommendation for where to get sick black outfits like in these photos, Lululemon is a personal favorite because their athletic casual wear can make it through the most extreme photo situations (like hiking up and down rocks, sitting on the ground, and getting close to cacti and bushes)!

Pick up your partner (or piggy back rides!)

Picking your partner up is a great pose to get goofy, intimate, and warm in those winter snowy self portraits! We love to finalize our personal brand photography session with these goofy images because we end the photo shoot on a good note!

Bree + Stephen are adventurous entrepreneurs based in Salt Lake City, Utah! They’re pioneers of the NO BS Podcast and hosts of their YouTube channel where they share travel videos, business tutorials, and lifestyle content! They live with their German Shepherd, Sequoia and are usually chugging coffee while on their way to a hike! Please contact for business inquiries or questions about the content on our website!