Web Cam Glam

Computers are great, but honestly sometimes they can make even the prettiest of faces look like cript keepers.

Time to give yourself a webcam makeover (and if you're thinking to yourself, "I'll never need this!" remember how the phrase "social media" didn't even exist about five years ago...that's what I thought, keep reading...)

Here are five ways to make yourself look super glam the next time you have a conversation over webcam. Even if you don't talk over the web via video, this will help turn out some better self portraits for Facebook...

1. Do your make up. Don't be sitting down to talk to Joe Shmo from Cocamo without any make up, thinking the screen distorition will hide things. It won't, it will only amplifiy. Make an effort to look nice. Treat every video conversation as if it were one face to face, because it bascially is.

2. Rid the room of all lighting except for a strategically placed lamp directly behind the lense of the camera shooting right at your face. Do not light yourself from the side or the back, direct lighting looks the most flattering. A soft light aimed directly at your face is best.

3. Angle your lense so that it's looking slightly down at you. The best way to achieve the most flattering angle is to place your lap top high enough so that it's right at the top of your head, then angle your screen down towards your face. Extra chins, neck achne, all this is becomes hidden.

4. Make sure you are centered on the screen, and keep your background clean (hey! it rhymes!). Don't sit down in front of your dirty laundry mound and try to have a meaningful conversation about life. Sit in front of a nicely painted wall, or something simple to keep your face the focus of attention.

5. Do not treat a webcam conversation as the time to see what you look like when you talk. Again, treat it as a face to face conversation. Would you stand in front of someone and talk to them while looking at yourself in the mirror the whole time? I think not, I hope not! Don't stare at your face in the video. Look at them in the lense-eye. If the eyes are the window to the soul, then that camera lense is the window pane-look directly at it.

Much like life (and anything on the internet) it's all about how you present yourself. Remember you are you own publicist (unless you're Jennifer Lopez, in which case you have a body double to talk on webcams for you ;)