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IELTS Speaking Part 2: IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card.

Describe a photo of yourself you have taken.

You should say:

• when you took it
• what type of camera you used
• why you took the photo

and explain whether you liked this photo or not.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you're going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Model Answer 1:
Well, this is such a challenging topic for me. In fact, I don’t really like to take my pictures or talk about them since I very seldom look good in my pictures. But, still, I would like to pick a picture from the archive of my memory which I took about 16 years ago.

Anyway, back then, I was just a young boy and I had just started to explore the world around me. In fact, as a young school-going boy, I was curious about a lot of things, which included things like how fishes could swim in the water, and how aeroplanes could fly in the sky. But, out of all those things, which would interest me so much, one of the things, which I was really curious about, was how to make binoculars.

In fact, I was so curious about making a binocular myself that my family actually was forced to buy me a couple of magnifying glasses, a cardboard tube, duct tape and a scissor so that I could make my own binocular. I am sure that by now you have probably already guessed that the picture I am talking about has something to do with making a binocular, and you are right, as it indeed is. In fact, I took a picture of me, holding my binocular, which I made all on my own after a marathon tries for almost one week! And the camera, used by my father, to take that picture was called “Kodak” if I remember correctly. By the way, I took the picture because I wanted to preserve the rare moment of displaying my “creativity” as a child!

Anyway, I think that I like this picture, mainly because it is one of the very pictures where I looked unusually happy and confident. Besides, I like this because it tells the story of a little boy who was loved by his parents, no matter how “unreasonable” his request might have been to them some times.

Sample Answer 2:
Well, these days such photographs are called 'selfie' and I did not know that there was something called selfie until I turned to 23! Selfie is indeed a craze these days while it was unheard of in the past, at least to me. The photograph that I would like to talk about was not a so-called selfie that teenagers take these days using the front camera of their mobile phones. I took this picture many years ago when I was around 12 years old with a large Canon camera. 

My father gave me this camera on my 12th birthday and this was the first time when I owned a camera. I loved to capture pictures of my relatives and beautiful sceneries. We had to use a rolled film at that time called ‘roll film’ and did not have the freedom to take as many photos as we wanted unlike the digital camera owners have these days.  

One day I was invited to one of my friends' birthday party and his parents requested me to bring my camera with me. I took many photos at that party and at night when I returned from the party, I noticed that 2-3 film strips were still empty and I could take more photos before I send the film roll to be washed and printed. At that time I was in my room and could not find anything suitable to capture. I was standing in front of the looking glass and the idea of taking my own picture popped into my head. It was a Canon CF-23 model camera and had only 3-4 options to adjust the light and flash while taking a photo. I had to spend more than 5 minutes to capture the picture and after I saw the printed version of this photo, I loved it.  

The picture shows me standing straight and holding a camera in front of my eyes. The backlight was visible and was more like a shining star in the sky. A part of the room was visible but everything in the opposite direction as it was through the mirror. I like this photo very much. It was taken by me, the idea was new, at least to me and the photo looks nice. My mother has this picture in her picture album and every time I see this photo, it reminds me of my teenage days.

Sample Cue Card Answer 3:
Photography is indeed an art and requires a lot of perseverance to click the right photo at the right moment. Recently, I have taken a photo of mine with my phone which is also an example for me how difficult it is to capture a photo of oneself using the primary camera of the mobile phone.

I took the photo last week when I attended a marriage ceremony of a cousin. This is the selfie-age and it is easier to get a selfie than any other thing. But I wanted something different. I am a girl who has recently graduated from the University of Kuala Lumpur and for the outstanding result, my dad bought me a smartphone. I heard about the top class photo from the camera of my device, iPhone 6s+, but did not have the chances to check the quality in a professional manner. So, I took the photo in that event to test the camera.

Basically, the mobile phone camera has been used to get the photo clicked. This is a standard mobile phone camera that comes with some special features like face detection, flash, geo-tagging and more others. The primary camera itself belongs to 12 megapixels while the front camera (used for video calling and self-images) is 5 megapixels. This was a great experience for me as I have never used such a wonderful mobile device before. I, in fact, had no idea that image would be so nice though I had to struggle enough to click the photo. The image quality is of a high standard and the pixels do not get saturated even if the images are taken with zooming from the device.

I took the photo out of my hobby. Usually, everyone takes photos of others using the front cameras of their mobile phone and it is really difficult to get the right picture of oneself using the primary camera. This is a blind try. It often happens that the object on the photos are not in the right place or there are some unwanted objects on the photos which need to be removed by editing. In a word, it is troublesome unless someone is clicking for you. But I made the almost impossible thing to possible. It was a kind of challenge for me to click the right photo entirely based on my intuition.

Of course, I like the photo and this is one of the greatest photos in my life. This is a great picture for me and I desire to print and bind. The picture shows that I am standing on a stunning dress before an illuminated garden. Some distant objects have also been captured but those were blurred for focusing on me only. Interestingly, it is impossible to understand that I took the photo using the primary camera of the phone. Though my cousins asked me to capture some moments for me with the phone, I did not allow them and instead took the photos by myself. But I think if the distant objects could have removed, the photo would look more beautiful.
 

More Ideas to talk about this Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card topic:

Topic: Describe a photo of yourself you have taken.

1. Last month, I took a photo of mine using a small digital camera. It was a kind of experiment because for many reasons. At present, the availability of selfie is everywhere and people mostly prefer taking selfies for many reasons. But I do not prefer to take selfies and make some duck faces. I took the photo to post on my social platform. Though it was not an interesting photo and I am not a professional, I liked the photo. It was testimony that I can take photos without using selfies.

2. The selfie that I took last weekend was extraordinary. I took the photo using my iPhone 7plus. It was a very special photo to me. I went to meet my local friends and to make the event memorable, I took the photo. Usually, selfies are captured through mobile phones and I did the same. It was a nice photo indeed. Every one of us was smiling and when I posted in on my social profile, many of the people had loved the photo.

3. Mirror photography is a kind of exceptional practice and I can do that very well. On Friday last, I had a day off from works and so I wanted to spend the time effectively. I used my mobile phone to take some mirror photos of mine by hiding the camera on the photo. I took the photo to master the art of hiding the camera from the mirror. After several attempts, I captured the perfect one. It was perfect. Just I was reflected in the photo and my mobile phone was absent. It was a smart photo indeed.

4. Currently, the use of selfie sticks is random among people because they want to take their own pictures in selfie mode. I also did so. Yesterday afternoon, I went to a rooftop restaurant in Paris and took such a photo using a selfie stick. Actually, I wanted to see how a selfie stick is effective. Thereby, I clicked the photo. The surrounding environment was excellent. The sun appeared with low brightness and the other elements were calm and peaceful. The environment reflection on the photo made it look wonderful.

5. Capturing a picture using the self-timer of a small digital camera is hard indeed. But my experiment went successfully. I went to visit the Red Fort in India last month and took such a picture. I took the picture to know how actually it works. And I was amazed at the result. But I had to make some prior arrangements like placing the camera in the right position, setting up the timer and other tasks. I posted the photo on my Facebook profile and everyone said it was a great photo.   

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