Set up your computer in front of a window, and importantly, make sure that light is hitting your face straight-on. Because whether you’re snapping a pic for Instagram or dialling in for a video call, having that light come from behind you ends up drowning you out entirely, reducing you to an inscrutable silhouette.
“Bad lighting is always a fear,” says Nyma Tang, a beauty YouTuber whose channel has more than a million subscribers. After all, assuming bad lighting doesn’t render you a dark shadow, it can cast unflattering shadows on your face, making you look tired, ill or even creepy – the opposite of that natural light effect.
It doesn’t end there: light coming from behind you could also cause for a harsh effect on everyone else’s screen, says Susan Yara, a TV journalist-turned-entrepreneur, and who runs a YouTube channel and digital production focused on beauty and lifestyle: “You don’t want to hurt everyone’s eyes.”
Video chatting in a windowless room? Putting a lamp behind your laptop and in front of your face works in a pinch, the pros say.
Avoid low angles
It’s one of the cardinal rules in camerawork: keep the camera eye-level or higher.
“You want to make sure your computer’s at least a little bit elevated so that you don’t have the double-chin effect [or] the computer’s looking up your nostrils,” says Lenarduzzi.
You can easily give your laptop some lift by stacking a bunch of things just lying around. Cookbooks or coffee table books work well, Yara suggests. “Angles make a big difference,” she says.
Mind your skin
In our webcam-dominated situation, practising good skincare is even more important than usual.
The camera can make bad habits “look ten times worse,” says Tang, as the computer screen tends to highlight things like oil on your face. She recommends blotting your face before you go live. Be on the lookout for uneven skin tone or chapped lips, too. (Zoom also has a filter used to even your skin tone.)
