Not photogenic

[Bubblylikechampers]

Not AIBU but it really does piss me off!!

I'd consider myself fairly attractive. Not pretty, but definitely 'ok' looking.

I could take a thousand pics and I look absolutely awful. Yet most people no matter what are so photogenic.

Why is this? My holiday pics at the moment are depressing as hell.

Any one else find this??

No I am not either, it seems that everyone is, except me. I am not that attractive, but look worse in pictures :-(

I’m the same. Troll like in a photo and normal in real life.

Same. I look in the mirror and think I look reasonable, but in pictures I look a fright.

I look better in photos
It is about poses and light etc though, I am a plus size model and can look awful in photos. Lots of makeup helps, and I mean lots, otherwise eyes and features tend to disappear
Lighting can alter a photo completely and so can posing

😂😂😂 I’m the same!!

Haha glad it's not just me! Sorry if I sound mean.

No amount of make up, lighting etc seems to work. I look awkward, ugly and older than I am.

If I see myself in a video clip, I look much how I perceive myself to look when I stand in front of a mirror. It just doesn't make sense.

There must be a reason???

Oh me too! I scrub up ok in real life. Quite sharp-featured, in fact. For some reason, the camera lens makes my eyes disappear into witch-like slits and gives me a Punch & Judy chin.

I look hideous in photos... I don’t think there are many of me in exsistence! I have one that was taken a few years ago that’s nice...

My smile always looks awkward yet I know my smiling pics are genuine and not forced. Arghhh

Yes, there is a reason OP.

You are used to seeing your own face in a mirror, but used to seeing other people as they “really are”. When the image is flipped in a photograph (ie. not a mirror image), any asymmetry in your face will be not only evident to you, but doubled, because you are so used to seeing it the other way around.
Use some basic photography software and flip one of those photos from your holiday. Do you look more like “you”? Does everyone else suddenly look a bit odd?

When I was doing online dating, some men said that I looked better in person. Bit cheeky of them to even comment, but it makes sense.

We are also, of course, harsher on our own faces than other people’s. And a photograph captured a split second - most people tend to be more attractive in animation.

I'm the same....not many photos of me about and even less that I like!

So Deadgood, are you saying the photos are a more truer representation of what I look like? Please don't depress me further 😬

I was really photogenic when younger. Seriously so. But now l look awful and refuse to have them taken

Try having a picture taken by someone you love hopefully it'll show you to your best

Golden/ I love my partner... still don't look photogenic 😂

I look bloody awful in photographs but more like myself in videos aswell. No advice to give other than perhaps spend some perfecting a "photo face" that you like, and pull it every time within 10 feet whips a camera out. Warning, you might end up with a rictus grin from this method but at least you'll have bearable photos.

Harriet- I could (and have) taken a thousand shameless selfies. And yes, I could find s better one out of the thousand but it will still look awful.

Me too

I've had two stunning looking cats - haven't got one decent picture of either of them. Comforting somehow...

i don't think it's just the mirror image thing. i am given to understand i'm a reasonably attractive woman but i'm not remotely photogenic. i've decided my face looks much more attractive when it's animated, having a conversation or whatever, than static, eg smiling for a photo. which fits with you finding videos more like how you think you look, op.

OP "If I see myself in a video clip, I look much how I perceive myself to look when I stand in front of a mirror. It just doesn't make sense"

me too! I look awful in photos no matter how much arranging is done. so when we had to do a work video I was dreading it....but then I saw it and it was like "oh, there I am. That is me and how I perceive me".

so why is a still moment never the same?!

Same here. I look awful in photos so there are very few of me these days as I run away from the camera. My adult DS, on the other hand, it's impossible to take a bad photo of him

DeadGood, that might explain some of the difference in how people perceive themselves in photos versus the mirror, but I frequently look at myself using two mirrors, so I am very familiar with my face the right way round, as it were. And I still look totally different (and much worse!) in photos.

I think you are closer to it in your second post by flagging up the difference between how we look in a frozen moment compared to in animation. I think I look best (but still not great, unfortunately for me) on video, and I think that video footage probably gives the best representation of how people really appear to others.