Look worse in photos than in real life.

[FluWorldOrder]

I know the saying "the camera adds ten pounds" but honestly! I started weight training in January and have done a workout 4 times a week since then. Yes this isn't very long but I am not overweight. I just need to build a bit of muscle to look "toned". My "progress pictures" are horrible! I don't feel that's what I actually look like at all. I look.. not great. It's disheartening.

Do you feel you look significantly worse in pictures than you do in real life? Solidarity needed 😵‍💫😭

This isn't even mentioning my face at all. I have never been photogenic and take a terrible picture.

I used to look fine in photos. Then I hit 45. And now my eyes look squinty and my face is too long.

I look APPALLING.

I suppose I should take comfort that I don't look that bad in real life 😬

I’m quite pretty in person, on photos? I’m a dog. And not a pretty type of dog like a spaniel either 😔

I have been thinking about this very thing today. It makes me really sad because I’ve got loads of lovely photos of my husband and son, but not a single one of me and son or family photo that I like enough to hang on the wall because I simply hate how I look in them.

@FluWorldOrder I am intensely unphotogenic - in real life I do not scare the horses , but apparently some people just take a better photo than others. I can scrub up well and look good & I think I look OK - just not in photos

It may amuse you to know I once read something about Sean Bean the actor who has done stuff where he looks rather handsome. The person said they had met him in real life and they said "Sean Bean is very photogenic , extremely photogenic , do not underestimate just how photogenic Sean Bean is " 😀I have never met the man so I an unable to comment further.

We are our own worst critics but having said that - in my photos I have a huge round red shiny face, the rest of me isn't that great either. In real life I don't think I look too bad. I could go out feeling great but later see the photos and my bubble is popped. When I was doing OLD, I found the only way to get a half decent photo was to hold the camera up, it's a much more flattering angle.

I'm in my 50s and look back on photos taken years earlier, that I absolutely hated at the time, and now think I looked quite pretty! So I think we're always more critical of ourselves than others would be. The distance of time made me realise the photos weren't that bad.

That being said, I hate photos of me now but maybe I will like them in my 70s! I do try and get the odd few taken for my DC really. I would hate for them to not have photos of me when I'm gone. But I don't show them to anyone else.

There are tricks you can use though. I find I have to open my eyes wider than feels natural as otherwise they look tiny. I also have to smile wider. My photo face is not any expression I ever use. But I've learnt what works, to a degree.

I definitely think some people look better in 3d (real life), and some people the camera loves, and their faces work best in 2d. I take a terrible photo.

I look like a potato in photos and in real life #notblessed.

I'm quite tall but in recent photos with my teenagers, I look like a short fat hobbit in mum clothes 😂😂

Dh and I met through online dating. He said I was significantly better looking than my photos 😃

I am reasonably good-looking. (Not just my opinion.). I look hideous in photos. They make me look chunky and I’m always corpse like in complexion. I hate having my photo taken.

There’s only one decent photo of me ever taken. But I have recently discovered that a large pair of sunglasses improves things.
Also I’m reasonably toned but look like I spend all day eating doughnuts as soon as a camera comes near me.

I have the opposite issue. Everyone describes me as "very photogenic" which immediately makes me think they're shocked and disappointed by 'real life' me 😆.

At least if you look better in real life, everyone is pleasantly surprised! I'm glad I don't have to catfish people and OLD.

Oh I’m so glad I’m not the only one. I always think I must have some kind of body dysmorphia but the other way round, as I actually think I look pretty good, but then when I see a photo I’m huge and my hair looks shit and my eyes are lopsided and I generally have to immediately delete them.

I’m always careful not to be on the end in a group shot too, as that always make me look even more massive! I think the way the camera focusses brings some things closer - like the opposite of a fish eye lens - and distorts it. That’s why we always look better in selfies!

I have this same complexion! I look horrible in photos and sometimes people will catch me off guard - those photos are truly awful! I have quite small features and I wonder if that makes me look worse?!

I am always bemused by those pictures you get when you go on a theme park ride. Everyone else with their big smiles and fun wide-eyed scream poses. I always look like someone put a potato in a rollercoaster.

Something someone said to me once really worried me- when you look at a photo of anyone else you know, you generally think that the photo is a good likeness. So what are the chances that a picture of you is not a good likeness?

I’ve concluded that I have a totally deluded sense of how I look in the mirror.

Even my wedding pics with a very expensive photographer paid to make me look great were only OK. I have so few pics of me and my son, it makes me sad but I hate most of them.

Not only do I look terrible in photos but I also look terrible on Skype or any other video platform. People are often surprised when they meet me in person.

I’m vile in photos. In real life I’m currently a size 10-12, not overweight at all. In photos I’m Jabba the Hutt.

Face-wise, what I see in the mirror does not translate to photos. I somehow look simultaneously too soft and flabby of face and too angular. My eyes disappear into the mounds of flesh on my face (that don’t exist in real life). Gross.

Yet in my teens and early 20/ (am mid 40s now) I was ridiculously photogenic and not one bad photo of me existed. I don’t get it.

Oh, also, my partner (also female) and I are the same dress size and often share clothes. I actually weigh a couple of lbs less than her and we are similar heights. Yet in photos she looks lithe and willowy and I look like a suet pudding in a wig. I have no idea why.

In person, I have an oval shaped face with prominent cheek bones and a chin so angular and pointy, DH has (affectionately, I think?) nicknamed me "Chinderella". In photos, everything about me widens 600% and there are no shadows or angles to my face, so I look like a slice of Billy Bear ham in athleisure clothes.

I watched YouTube videos about it and apparently it's because of the lens in your phone's camera, which is tiny but tries to fit as much into a shot as a proper camera, so things get flattened and distorted. This discovery also led me to buy a wide-angle webcam for Teams meetings and holy shit, it makes such a difference. It's so much more flattering!

Crying at Billy Bear ham in athlete clothes

i can pull what I think is a nice smile in a photo, not too big, small flash of teeth, and when I look at the photo I look like 😆 (that emoji)

I wear glasses so something about smiling hides the top of my cheeks behind the frames and my eyes look really squint. And, to top it off, I had Bells Palsy in my first pregnancy which I didn’t treat because steroids would have raised my blood sugars (I’m a type 1 diabetic). Taking the steroids would have meant a week in hospital on an insulin drip over Xmas so I took my chances it would sort itself out. For the most part it did, apart from when I smile in photos you can see it’s ever so slightly squint, which combined in everything else makes for a real ruiner of group pics.