I get it - being in front of a camera is weird...

It’s one thing to direct people in front of the camera.

It’s another to do it for yourself.

Recently, I’ve decided to explore building a brand around my photo education platform, DELIVER MAGIC.

Boy oh boy, did that decision open up a gigantic can of worms. Some good worms, but mostly, the overwhelming, frustrating and confusing variety.

I know you can relate.

In the midst of figuring out what I want to talk about and how to optimize the content in a way that gets eyeballs - spoiler alert, still trying to figure that out - I discovered through some research that one of the keys to getting attention revolves around compelling thumbnail design.

Specifically, thumbnails that highlight the creator’s facial expression and body language in a way that visually punctuates the sentiment of the video.

As someone who, up until this point, used YouTube as a holding container for video clips that were used in my online content, I’ve never once thought about thumbnail design.

Can’t get away with that anymore!

As a result, I decided that if I’m serious about this, I needed image assets that could easily be used as thumbnail art.

That meant I needed to get my ass in front of a camera, and be my demonstrative, animated and magical self.

The plan was simple. Since I’m going to be cut out of the images placed on different backgrounds, all I needed was a simple setup - my light, camera, and a plain wall.

What made a simple setup difficult is that the photographer I hired to shoot these photos…

…was myself.

The good news is since I captured my own headshot several months back, I knew what additional equipment was needed to get the job done.

Triggers, extra cables, a monitor - it was a pain to initially set up, but ultimately, that was still the easy part.

The hard part was trying to keep a straight face while acting wildly, over-the-top in front of the camera in order to capture the demonstrativeness that I needed.