Short answer
Use one full-body photo: head to toes, standing, facing the camera, evenly lit, in the clothes you want to dance in. The routine has a step out, a kick, a knee lift and an arm raise, and the camera never comes closer than head to shoes for all 14 seconds, so a cropped photo leaves the render inventing a body and it will show up in the kicks.
Try it with one photoStateside dance photo guide
One of only two effects here that wants a full-body photo — because the routine is all legs and arms.
Updated 2026-11-05
The short checklist
- Full body, head to toes, standing up straight, face to the camera.
- Sharp and evenly lit. The dancer is small in frame for the whole clip, so a soft photo stays soft.
- The outfit you want to dance in — it comes from the photo, and the reference dancer's clothes are discarded.
- One person, nothing in the hands, feet apart enough to read the legs.
- A neutral pose. Arms already in the air fight the first beat of the routine.
Why this one needs the whole body
Most trends on this site are portrait jobs. This one is a dance: the camera sits at chest height and holds the dancer head to shoes for fourteen seconds while they step out, kick, lift a knee and throw an arm up. Every one of those moves needs a leg or an arm that exists in the photo.
If the photo stops at the waist, the render invents the lower half, and invented legs are the first thing an audience notices on a kick. If the photo is a headshot, it is worse: you get a dancer whose body belongs to nobody.
What actually breaks
| Photo | What happens |
|---|---|
| A headshot | The body is invented and the kicks look wrong immediately |
| Two people in one frame | Both faces average into one dancer |
| A dark or backlit photo | The face is small in frame already, and it stays muddy |
| Arms already raised in the photo | The first beat reads as a frozen pose instead of a bounce |
| A photo shot mid-jump | The model keeps the airborne pose and the feet never find the floor |
| Trainers out of frame | The shoes are guessed, and shoes are visible in every frame |
What to wear
Whatever you want to see dancing: a tracksuit, a dress, pyjamas, a work shirt. The reference dancer wears a hoodie and sweatpants and those are explicitly discarded, so there is no reason to dress like her — and something unexpected reads funnier on the routine.
If the render misses
- 1Watch 4-7 seconds first: that is the hand flicks, and it is where a wrong body shows up.
- 2If a hand blurs through a flick, run it again — fast moves are the model's weak point, not the photo's.
- 3If the face drifts, the dancer is small in frame; try 720p and a sharper photo.
- 4If the room changes, that is the model, not the photo: run it again.