When was the last time you took a selfie? Maybe you wanted to show off your new glasses to a friend, or you wanted to capture a special moment with a loved one. Selfies are a great way to capture your image, because you can do it, well, yourSELF! With today’s smartphone cameras, great selfies are easier than ever to take – just use your front-facing camera and go for it! But not all selfies are created equal. In honor of National Selfie Day today, we’ve rounded up a few tips for getting great selfies, just like the PCH Prize Patrol!

1. Find Your Light

No matter where you’re taking a selfie, you always want to be facing a light source. The camera needs light to capture your wonderful smile! If you’re outside, that means the sun should be in front of you. If you’re inside, make sure you don’t have a lamp behind you. Even better, try to stand facing a window if you can, because…

2. Natural Light Is Best

If you want a really great selfie, the best kind of lighting is natural light. Sunlight is diffuse, meaning that it’s spread out across a large area, so it gives you a soft glow instead of harsh angles. Obviously, the Prize Patrol spends a lot of time in the Prize Patrol Van, so you can see that Danielle is taking full advantage of the beautiful natural light coming in through the window.

3. Know Your Angles

One huge tip that can help your selfies look awesome is to tilt something. You can either hold your camera slightly above your face and look up at it, or you can hold the camera straight on and tilt your chin down. You can see here that Loren has her camera slightly above her eyeline, and is tilting her chin a bit down. The key is to avoid taking a selfie straight-on.

4. Look At The Camera!

Okay, this one might be kind of a “duh” moment, but…look at the camera! And not just like, in the general vicinity of your phone. Depending on your phone model, there might be a little indicator showing you JUST where to look when you’re using your front-facing camera. Looking directly into the camera lens will help your selfie connect with whoever will be looking at it later.

5. Take Lots Of Selfies!

Your phone has the ability to take as many photos as you need it to, so take lots of options when you are taking a selfie! There is absolutely no reason you need to take one and stop there. You can delete the ones you don’t like later. Plus, this has the added benefit of giving you lots of practice taking selfies to figure out what angles you like best! It’s okay to be goofy and silly, too!

6. Have Fun!

Selfies are a form of self-expression, and shouldn’t be stressful! Try to have fun while you’re taking selfies and that joy will come through in the finished photo.

More Ways To Win!

Looking for more fun ways to collect tokens and enter PCH sweepstakes? If you take any of our brain-tickling, 20-question quizzes at PCHquizzes, you’ll score 200 tokens for each correct answer — that’s a whopping 4,000 tokens per quiz for answering 100% correctly! You can also peruse a short, entertaining slideshow at PCHfrontpage and, if you click through to another slideshow, you’ll bank 1,000 tokens. Pretty easy, right? You’re welcome!