Grow-Up Reel › Guides

How to shoot a daily selfie that lines up in a face timelapse

Published 2026-10-25

A photo-a-day timelapse is only as smooth as the photos are consistent. Grow-Up Reel lines up every selfie by the eyes, so drifting left or right, closer or further, or tilting your head doesn't matter. What still shows is anything that changes the face itself: the angle you look from, the light and the mirror.

The ten-second setup

1. Same height: hold the phone at eye level. Shooting from below or above changes the shape of the face from day to day.
2. Same distance: a straight arm's length. Closer than that and wide-angle lenses stretch the nose.
3. Look into the lens, not at the screen, with a neutral expression. Pick one expression and keep it.
4. Same light, from the front: face a window if you can. A lamp directly overhead puts shadows under the eyes that flicker in the timelapse.
5. Same camera: the front camera or the back camera, not both. They have different lenses.

The mirror setting

Most phones can save front-camera selfies mirrored or unmirrored (on iPhone it's Settings › Camera › Mirror Front Camera). Either is fine, but don't switch halfway: a mirrored photo flips your parting, freckles and scars to the other side, and the timelapse jumps.

Keep the originals

The reel orders photos by the date stored inside each file. Screenshots, photos saved from messaging apps and some edited copies lose that date. Keep the selfies in your camera roll and add them from there.

Settings for a photo-a-day reel

• Speed: 0.1 to 0.15 seconds a photo. A year plays in under a minute.
• Between photos: Fade or Cut. Morph is made for photos years apart; at this speed a fade looks cleaner.
• Captions: Month and year.
• Face size: if you want more hair and background in shot, lower Face size a little.

Missed days and big changes

Missed days don't matter: the reel just plays the photos you have, in order. New glasses, a beard or a haircut are the best moments of a timelapse. The only things that break it are hands, phones or hats over the eyes.