Looking to turn up the drama in your self-portraits or selfies? For inspiration, take a look at these 45 scenic self-portraits of adventurous photographers. You’ll find lots of ideas from the photographers who captured themselves in the world’s most stunning views—from the top of sky-high peaks to sun-drenched seascapes to frozen terrains. Plus, these images are sure to give you a case of wanderlust.
Scroll down, and prepare to swoon!
“This is a self portrait of me standing in a sea of fog taken just hours ago on our way home.” – Alex Wise
“Paddled to a remote island deep in Lake Huron, a perfect location for stargazing without too much light pollution. This is a self-portrait.” – Henry Liu
“Far away from all the iconic places you can find in your tourist brochure, I took this self-portrait last year during a 2 day exploration in Landmannalaugar. This part of Landmannalaugar isn’t the easiest place to discover because of the strong glacier rivers and the bold and erosive mountains. Luckily I managed to find a great route towards this and many more spots.” – Max Rive
“Black sand beaches make amazing contrast with the white ocean including this one near Shelter Cove, California. I knew I wanted a figure in the scene to provide a little more contrast and break the smooth curve of the surf. What better way than to grab my surfboard and head to the beach myself. A self-timer remote capturing one shot every 2 seconds made this easy. ” – Casey McCallister
“I took my shoes off, to not damage sensitive Icelandic Moss. Please do not walk in shoes on moss.” – Iurie Belegurschi
“A self portrait from an early morning at one of my favourite locations. This rock was completely covered in black ice and I wondered if I might slip off and die. I didn’t, thankfully.” – Lizzy Gadd
“I shot this self portrait a couple years ago on a visit to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. After shooting a beautiful sunrise, I quickly ran to this spot I had scouted the previous day. I setup my tripod on a large boulder type rock close to the edge, and put the camera on a 10 second timer. I then would have 10 seconds to drop 6 feet off this rock to a lower one, run about 15 feet to the edge of a straight 2000 foot drop and stop just a short foot from the edge Then I would have to compose myself for the shot, so I didn’t look as frazzled as I felt running to the edge like that. Needless to say, it took me about a dozen tries to get it just right, and by the time I did, I was sweating from more than just running back and forth.” – Koveh Tavakkol
“This will most definitely go down in history as my most dangerous shoot ever. I was so scared to crawl across the melting ice caps at my cottage to get this, I almost didn’t do it! But I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t, and I was right. So thankful not to have fallen through to that ice water below!” – Leah Johnston
“I didn’t get to shoot a timelapse when I went here the day before, so I decided to go back the next day since I had some free time. I started the timelapse then walked in frame for size reference. As you can see, there were some fairly large pieces of ice. I was also treated to a nice sunset.” – Matt Molloy
“Selfie.” – Sonya Khegay
“After 5 days and nights of hope, finally the sky cleared off and the sun sent enough particles in the sky to produce an amazing aurora which filled up the sky. For this self-portrait, I cleared off the snow from the frozen Great Slave Lake and set to strobe and a glowing stick that would match the color of the sky.” – Régis Matthey
“POV with the short beaked dolphins a few miles off the coast of San Diego.” – Michael Leung
“Self portrait. This is a photo I wanted to take for a long time, but it turned out to be quite a challenge. In order to get the composition I imagined, I had to find the right time when the center of the galaxy (Milky Way) appears in that exact location. Also, the desert sky had to be crystal clear and cloudless, for the pictures to be sharp and detailed. The final photo you see is a vertical panorama (44MP) I made from 4 horizontal wide-angle photos, each one made with several minutes of exposure, using a star tracking device to eliminate star trails caused by the earth rotation. So basically it took all night. The editing in this photo is very minimal. All lighting and colors are natural, as captured by the camera.” – Tomer Yaffe
“A night silhouette self portrait! I’m using 85/1.2 lens!” – Ilko Allexandroff
“Spring song!” – Jesus Solana
“The spiral effect was NOT done in Photoshop – My lens was slowly zoomed from 11mm to 16mm over 1 hour using a zoom machine I built. This was the result: self-portrait.” – Ajay Parikh-Friese
“Self portrait taken with GoPro HERO III” – Ido Meirovich
“Self portrait in ice cave.” – Aron Jonsson
“Me, at work on the Boeing 737-800. Location: Boa Vista – Cabo Verde Islands. Shot with a GoPro Hero 2 on a Ushot pole.” – Martijn Kort
“Daydreaming at night – watching the fog roll in over Crystal Springs Reservoir on a beautiful near full moon night.” – Tristan O’Tierney
“Selfies on my bike are certainly the most authentic ones. I love motorcycles.” – Valentin Kouba
“A self-portrait I took one morning in Positano, Italy.” – Michael Matti
“Me on a rooftop in front of downtown Dubai. No PS tricks.” – Karim Nafatni
“Although there is something thrilling about documenting places that have rarely, if ever, been photographed, I find there is also excitement in shooting subjects that have attracted photographers from far and wide, and for a long time. This is the famous, incredibly photogenic Wanaka tree. I spent an hour shooting the icon a few months ago, thinking of all who had stood before me in this spot. An absolutely magical place at night with the waves lapping the shore, the stars above and the birds standing guard. Self-portrait, 45 seconds, ISO 3200, f/4.” – Paul Zizka
“We were at Skógafoss, where I set up my tripod and camera while staring in silent awe at the cascading water. I began to shed my layers of scarves, coat and sweaters in preparation to put on my red dress for this self-portrait…and then I patiently waited. Waited for the sun and clouds to line up correctly to light the waterfall just right. Waited for the surrounding tourists to finish taking their photos. Waited for the breeze to blow the mist away from my camera lens. After almost 45 minutes, I finally saw my chance. I slipped off my shoes and ran towards the falling sheets of water, camera clicking away behind me…and was suddenly engulfed in the freezing, falling mist as I spun around joyously at the bottom of the falls. It was that very moment, when my clothes were soaked through and my feet kept slipping between rocks and I felt absolutely frozen, that my mindset finally changed from “dreamy, hazy” to “Oh my frognoggin’ firecrackers this is freaking real” before I had to run back to the safety of my coat and scarf. It was one of those moments where I felt most alive.” – Lizzy Gadd
“A caving party gone short left me with no other option but to include myself in the frame. Speedlight set at about 30 degrees left of the camera illuminates speleothems on my right while, another behind me creates a dark frame for depth. An interval timer set at 12 seconds delay came in handy to get me in the right spot, took me 5 clicks to come out with this photograph. Some might call it selfie, I call it cave photography.” – Rawen Balmaña
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“For years I’ve been driving to the top of Mount Evans hoping to experience a sunrise with low fog like this. I must say, it was worth the frustration and the wait. I’ve never seen clouds in Colorado like this and it was a pleasure to sit and reflect on such amazingness at 14,000 feet.” – Casey McCallister
“This image is a composite of 65 frames from a static time lapse of the Milky Way moving across the sky. I stacked the frames of this sequence to make a standard star trails image and then blended/masked in a single frame of the Milky Way. Shooting straight into the light at a lighthouse tower is always difficult but I like the final result here. And oh yeah this is also a selfie because I jumped into the last frame and pointed at the sky. Very rarely do I photograph myself but I thought this gave a great sense of scale to the final image.” – Mike Taylor
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“Paragliding in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria.” – David Bengtsson
“A self-portrait taken last night at Moraine Lake. What a night for a first visit to the lake this year: stars by the millions, the Ten Peaks towering all around and the sound of ice lazily moving about on the surface of the water. I was hoping for a simpler composition but some of those ice floes just wouldn’t budge!” – Paul Zizka
“Went out to take some self-portraits, yesterday.” – Kaitlyn Slocombe
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“Self portrait of my dog and I at Abiqua Falls, Oregon a couple of months ago.” – Joshua Meador
“From the other night at Sutro Baths, decided to walk out a bit to get a self portrait of myself, really love sunsets here.” – Toby Harriman
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“Sometimes I just like to sit on the beach and watch the fireworks. This is a self portrait taken a few years ago along the beach in Jupiter, Florida USA. This one may have been a bit too close for comfort!” – Chris Johnson
“I don’t take many selfies but I thought this location needed something extra. Taken at The Balconies in the Grampians. There is another rock ledge just out of frame above me which gave this place its original name of “The Jaws Of Death”. It was later changed to The Balconies to not scare away tourists from visiting. I did actually use the 10 sec timer on the camera!! It was a bit of a sprint to get there in time and quite dangerous too as it was raining at the time and very slippery. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but looking back I could have easily falling off trying this.” – Dylan Gehlken
“DCIM\100GOPRO.” – Stu Gallagher
“My morning workout, standing on a stone.” – PK °Art
“View from a cave near Kanab.” – Prajit Ravindran
“An abandoned ship in Sharjah, the emirate next to Dubai. Combination of multi-exposures tone-mapped HDR & Digital Blending.” – Daniel Cheong
“A cold, snowy day in British Columbia. I used my umbrella to to add some colour and hit the self timer button.” – Viktoria Haack
“Self-portrait inside stephen’s gap.” – Benjamin King
“Point Reyes is a seashore and preserve located in Marin County, California. The Milky Way rose up very early in the morning and this was one of my first opportunities to shoot it this year. There was a thick haze on the beach blocking most of the stars from view, so we decided to hike all the way up the cliffs in the middle of the night to catch a better view. Once the Milky Way finally came into perspective, I had an overwhelming feeling of joy and decided to take this self-portrait. On the technical side, this is indeed what the light looked like, and that is not the sun; it is actually light pollution from the surrounding Bay Area and San Francisco. Instead of subduing the light pollution in Photoshop, I decided to blend it a little and make it the main light source in the image. You would be surprised how well lit it was out there, so it didn’t take much work to get the foreground nice and illuminated.” – Michael Shainblum
Browse more self-portraits shot in gorgeous landscapes.
There are so many awe-inspiring self-portraits on 500px that we’re open to doing a Part II of this collection in the future.
Got your own scenic self-portraits or selfies to share? Upload and tag them on 500px.com then comment below with the the link and the story behind your shots!
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