To feel like crying when I see a photo of myself

[WannaBeWildCosMyLifesSoTame]

Like most people I'm never very keen on pictures of myself so I avoid them whenever I can but I've lost quite a lot of weight (3 stone) recently and invested in some decent make-up and skincare (money down the drain as far as I can tell :() so I had hoped that I might look OK in some pictures I was having to get taken for work. I'm sorry to say that wasn't the case.

I've just seen the pics and I look absolutely awful - saggy and wrinkly with either a stupid grin or an expression like I'm about to punch someone, with massive boobs and pasty skin and every pore and blemish glaringly obvious. Worst of all, I don't even look like me - not how I see myself in the mirror anyway. I look old and tired and I can see the most unattractive features of all my relatives staring out at me.

I'm only 38 - do I really have to avoid cameras for the rest of my life just so I don't have to feel this depressed again?

The person I see in photos and the mirror always shocks me. In my head I am a tidy size 16. In reality, I am a chunky size 24. I gained weight after DS2 's birth, 11 years ago. ( This didn't happen when I had my DS1 or DD!), my post pregnancy tummy sadly never regained its shape. I just don't seem to be able to shift the weight,and have resigned myself to looking fat for the rest of my life. All I see in the mirror is my Grandmother looking at me.
I think if I ever did manage to lose weight I would STILL be unhappy because I would have rolls of saggy skin that I wouldn't be able to afford to do anything about. And I wish I could blame the weight on eating voraciously and sedantry lifestyle, but it is nothing like that! I try to eat healthily...I work in a school ffs! That gives me plenty of exercise!

I don't think is unreasonable, as that is how I feel.

WannaBeWildCosMyLifesSoTame

Thank you.

My 10 year old passport photo is so unlike the way I look now that immigration people sometimes comment on it. One even said to me that it literally looks nothing like me and I should get it changed .
Unusually for a passport pic, it is actually flattering. It was taken in a booth and it's the only pic I have of myself that I can stand to look at. Sadly, passport is about to go off for renewal so that's that avenue of pleasure cut off. .

I am in phone and cannot see URL but have shamelessly copied this for you for general tips... False eyelashes may be a step too far?

This is from a blog called The Debutante Ball

Wear solid colors and avoid white — patterns sometimes play havoc with the cameras, and white can be a problem. Plus, dark solids make you look skinnier.
Smile. It’s always a shock when you watch a tape of your very first TV appearance and see how much time you spend not smiling. Why do I look so miserable? , you’ll think, I should be happy. I’m on TV selling gazillions of books. Remind yourself to smile.
V-necks are most flattering. I’m not sure why, but it’s true.
Your features will just melt into a puddle when you’re on TV so you’ll need to wear a lot more makeup than usual. When you start to feel like a female impersonator, you’re ready.
Wear false eyelashes. even if you would never EVER wear false eyelashes in real life, wear them on TV. The nice people at the MAC store will show you how to put them on. I snorted when I first heard this tip, but all the biggies wear them: Katie Couric, Oprah, Diane Sawyer.
Wear a good powder. In TV world, shiny is bad. Richard Nixon bad.
Try not to look like a lunatic. Pre-TV, I tended to bob my head in agreement when someone was speaking, and use a lot of hand gestures. (I’m Italian, can’t help myself.) The result? The bobblehead is distracting, and gesturing too wildly (or rocking in your chair) can make you look nutty. That said, don’t just sit around like a stiff with your hands folded neatly in your lap. Animated is good, hyperactive is not.

Learn not to give a shit. It is a hell of a lot easier than posing and make up and all the rest of it.

You look fine. The vast majority of people look fine. There are extremes at either of the spectrum but mostly people just look like people.

Another who hates having photos taken - because I look so fugly in them. I struggle with what I look like anyway - massive lack of self confidence - but, with a bit of effort, think I just about scrub up .... and then I see photos, and realise I've been deluding myself.

What I genuinely don't understand is this ..... everyone realises the benefits of good camera, good photographer, good lighting etc etc., but how come then that most people I know, e.g. on Facebook, have literally 10s, if not 100s, of photos where they look, at worst, passable, and, at best, gorgeous ? There's no way these are professional photos - most are snapped by family/friends, often with camera phones, and they still come out okay. No matter what I do, or how I try (if prewarned) to "pose" I still always look rotten.

Thanks for that Topaz, some very handy tips, there's a high chance of me looking a bit nutty so I need all the help I can get :)

I don't think half of the people here can look as bad as they think....I think it sounds more like low self esteem. My Mum always thinks she looks a rotter in pics but she doesn't! It's her idea of herself that's all skewed...she's very attractive....still pretty at 60. I think those who reckon they look bad, need to stop focusing on their "faults" but to look at the bits they KNOW are good....everyone has at the very least, ONE good bit...hair...teeth...lips....eyes...focus on that!

I could have posted this i look a total sea donkey in photo's and to make matters worse I've just been listening to myself talk on video and I sound like a sea donkey with a very low IQ.

I hate photos of myself. People take them at events and show them to everyone and it's mortally embarrassing because I look about 5 stone heavier than I am or am I in denial?, shiny and have an awful face with a double chin or a drunk expression. People say "ooh it's a really good photo" but they can't be serious, I look like I belong on the munsters or something. When we got married I told the photographer he would need to take literally hundreds to get enough of me looking OK to populate an album. He did and we still struggled, a few of them are compromises. DH and the DS's look a lot nicer and so I mostly take photos if I can.

Invest in a spray tan, thats why all the celebs now have a spray tan, its flattering in photos.

I second getting a spray tan. There is a natural looking one called Sun Junkie. I can really tell the difference in myself in pictures in ones where I haven't put some tan on. With, I resemble a human being. WIthout, I look like Jabba the Hutt on a sick day. :(

We are our own worst critics! You won't be hideous to other people only yourself. I can write a list as long as my arm about the ugly features that I have which flash like a beacon in pictures, but that's because I constantly look for them. I hate myself in pictures, but my husband friends and family seem to think I'm attractive to them.

Also remember looking in a mirror you're the other way round. Have you ever looked at a mirror image of a photo of yourself? Very different!

Absolutely morloth, honestly you just have faces...like the rest of us. People who love us love them too.

Learn to put on the cheese when having your photo taken. I'm not photogenic and don't consider myself to be any great beauty but when someones taking a photo, I stand properly and put on a big fake smile, it seems to work. Even if you dont have great teeth (I dont, a prominent gap), everyone looks better with a smile. Check my profile pic to see an example!

If you look terrible in the photos then that's at least partly down to the photographer! He's the expert - he should have put you in the right light, coached you a bit about expressions, done a bit of the old Photoshop magic on the results, etc, etc.

I bet you look a lot better than you think. It's just that celebs and their photoshopping/picture control have given us a totally unrealistic expectation about what normal women look like at 39. Much as I loathe the Daily Mail, at least those horrible intrusive 'caught getting a Starbucks' pap shots prove that even A-listers don't really look like that all the time.

If it really bothers you, do what a previous poster suggests and get a friend to take lots of photos of you until you've worked out what your best side is, what angle your head needs to be at for maximum flattery, and then wheel out that pose every time. (Cf, Liz Hurley and her dislocated hip). It also helps to decide which of your features you really DO like - nice ankles, lovely eyes, good shoulders, plumpcious cleavage - and make sure that's front and centre. And if all else fails, delete delete delete.

I look like professor snape in my driving licence and I appear to have a 'beautiful' beehive hairstyle in my passport.

I dread going missing because all my photos are awful. No one would want to find me .

Awwww don't be so hard on yourself!

It is most likely, what everyone else has been saying. It's really hard to look good in photographs, and you know - I think everyone pretty much feels the same way even if everyone else thinks everyone else looks great!

I think - not to sound big headed - that I am quite pretty in r/l. In photographs, I look like an absolute troll. What I see in the mirror does not translate to what I see in photographs. Dark circles under eyes, a Joker smile, large expanse of jaw...look how awful we are about ourselves!

Don't beat yourself up. In some ways, fancy cameras on phones and 5 trillion megapixel cameras without the flattering lighting effects make things so much worse. Only have your picture taken with the Retro Camera on a smart phone from now on - much more flattering all round