How I take photos of myself

Came across this photo and thought some of you might find it interesting. Someone asked me the other day who took my photos and I said "ME!"  Mr Rae is usually at work when I want to take pictures, and he doesn't really know how to use the camera in manual mode anyway.

So here's what I do: I have a wired shutter remote from B&H, and attach it to an even longer cable so that I have about 12 feet of cord between me and the camera, which is on a tripod. Then I stand in the entryway to our house -- the only place in my house with a white-ish wall that has enough light for photos -- and press the shutter button on the remote to snap the picture. I have a 2-second timer delay set on my camera so I can drop the remote before the photo is taken. That's it. Campy? Probably. I keep feeling like there's a better way to do this but it works for me. Sometimes I put a munchkin up on a stool behind the camera and let them push the remote button instead. The photo you see above is just one of a couple "test" photos I take before I get started to check exposure and so on. For the maxi dress photos I was going for a slightly out-of-focus, ethereal/airy effect, so I overexposed them a bit.Most of my photos then need to be cropped so that you don't see my door, my rug, etc, because I try to use the largest aperture I can for the lens so that I get as much light as possible. Even in that entryway there's not a ton of light.

So that's pretty much my one photography secret revealed. Oh wait, there was this post a couple years ago about using white posterboard for photos. OK, two photography secrets. I feel like I'm gradually getting better at it, but I'm always learning new things. The internet is pretty amazing that way. Any tips you want to share?