Why do I look weird on camera???

[Fruity1112]

Hello,
I'm mid 20s. My boyfriend is extremely photogenic, like very! Every photo looks like him.
Me? Not so much.

It's like the camera distorts my face. I think I look lovely in the mirror and then someone takes a picture and my face looks all squashed and double chinny.

It happens so often that there is a joke in my friendship group about me being unphotogenic.

I havent thought about it until today when boyfriend jokingly filmed me tidying without me knowing and I was chatting to him. He showed me the video and I looked horrendous!!! My face was so round with a double chin, my makeup looked cake, my face once again looked squashed.

But I don't get it because in real life I'd say i'm fairly attractive. I don't get why i always have a massive double chin on camera as that double chin is not there when I look in the mirror and I am not overweight at all!

I'm just disappointed by the video as I didnt even know I was being filmed so that was me in ny natural state and I still look awful:(

My face droops MASSIVELY in photos. As far as I know I've never had a stroke (though I did suffer partial sightedness and weakness on one side during my regular migraines as a teen and TIAs were suggested) but photos actually show my mouth turns fully down on one side and my eye is at least half an inch lower and more closed than my right. Christ knows why a mirror doesn't show it as far as I can tell. It's very disturbing and as a result there are almost no photos of me unless I have used a filter or specifically opened my left eye wider and done a smirk, feckin duckface pout or a wide exaggerated toothy smile (and I hate showing teeth)

Same here. I look like a potato in photos.

However, it’s interesting that I’ve been going through some old pics recently, and photos I previously hated are suddenly fine. I look quite nice in a few.

I think it’s because I’m no longer looking with a critical eye and I’m a good ten years younger in most of them

Something that seems a bit mean but helps, is to cast the same critical eye on other people in the same photo as you. If you’re anything like me, you’ll look at a pic and think ‘Oh look, there’s Julie...there’s Dave...OH MY GOD THERE’S ME LOOK AT MY WITCHY CHIN/DROOPY EYE/BENT THUMB/WHATEVER I’M A HAG’

Try looking at Julie or Dave and see if you can spot what they’d hate if they were looking at the pic. It’ll teach you two things:

1. Most people look shit in photos
2. Nobody but you cares what you look like

I have a round face, very prominent cheekbones and almond shaped, widely spaced eyes. For me it's all about the type of camera. Profession photos make me look like Debbie Harry, phone cameras make me look like a praying mantis.

@orangenasturtium ouch! god that's harsh, but did make me

I look dreadful on photos. I had to tell our wedding photographer to literally take 100's to be in with a chance of filling an album. Even so it was difficult and I ended up settling for ones I didn't really like. I'd say about 1/20 photos of me are acceptable, far fewer good. I have facial asymmetry and look like Quasimodo on camera. I also look far heavier and round faced. So Quasimodo and miss Piggy's love child. Agreed re online meetings too. Other people looked so glam 😫

I look great in selfies and (what I see) in the mirror because I know how to pose but I know the reality is others see me like I am in photos taken by others.

The point about how rarely it is that other people say you don’t look like your photos is spot on. Yes it happens occasionally but it’s rare. When u take a photo of someone, unless it’s a really bad angle it something, it’s how they look.

I work PT as a model and still look like a potato in some photos!

My chins seem to appear magically when others take a photo of me...

I have heard that we only look at select parts when we look in a mirror. Like maybe check for spinach in our teeth, or check our hair, and a photo forces us to see the whole picture. But, you are only 20’s. I feel like I was in my 30’s just a day or two ago. Now, when I look in the mirror, I don’t know the person looking back! Worse, when someone takes a picture, somehow my late mother reappears to make a cameo!

I am exactly the same ‘OP’ I get complimented on my looks often and I think I look pretty ok in the mirror but omg the camera doesn’t like me at all to the extent I just don’t know what’s real anymore!

It's the camera! Google effects of camera lenses and you'll see the difference that a lens can make.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it

I used to actively avoid cameras but since having dc, I force myself into photos so that he'll have memories. Hoping that if I will love him enough, he won't point out my lumps and bumps when looking through the family album in years to come!

Harsh but true @Candyflosscookie!

PlatinumBrunette has explained it far better than me. The camera flatters those with angular bone structure and turns those of us with flatter faces into lumpy potato heads. That was the exactly the point my boss was making when he publicly humiliated me. Funnily enough, the technical explanation of why my twenty-something face could probably have turned a few heads in real life but turned stomachs on video has long been erased from my memory just not the embarrassment!

Me too you're not alone.

@HouchinBawbags

My face droops MASSIVELY in photos. As far as I know I've never had a stroke (though I did suffer partial sightedness and weakness on one side during my regular migraines as a teen and TIAs were suggested) but photos actually show my mouth turns fully down on one side and my eye is at least half an inch lower and more closed than my right. Christ knows why a mirror doesn't show it as far as I can tell. It's very disturbing and as a result there are almost no photos of me unless I have used a filter or specifically opened my left eye wider and done a smirk, feckin duckface pout or a wide exaggerated toothy smile (and I hate showing teeth)

I'm the same. I look like I've had a stroke in photos. It is very odd because I can't see it in the mirror. I am practising different poses, smiles and head angles. I mostly avoid photos though.

I had no idea anyone's forehead could be so DEEP until I saw myself photographed in profile. Not a tall forehead, a deep one. It's like I have a receding hairline. I don't. It hasn't moved. It's just naturally terrible, it seems. Though I'd never have known it if I had only looked head on into mirrors.

And I'm horsey toothed in photos, when caught laughing.

And my nose is like a beak.

And my eyes are poppy.

And my skin terrible.

And my cheeks gaunt.

And my legs huge.

And my hair flat and drab.

And my stomach enormous...

Yet when I get ready in the morning, I'm fairly well put together, and I'm none of the above things. It baffles me how i can look so awful after looking so alright. But I've decided the photos must be true, as it's not been "a one off". It's every photo...

Depressing.

Oh @orangenasturtium that's horrible - you poor thing!
Discussing this with DH tonight, he says that as soon as I'm aware that there's a camera about he sees my whole face and body language tense up, so when I'm posing I genuinely don't look like like I do when I'm naturally smiling. I partly put that down to my dad taking approx 40 minutes for the simplest family snap and getting grumpy with anyone who didn't look 100% thrilled with the process when I was a child.

Interesting that everyone else says their issue is potato-face. Mine is definitely looking far too pointy and harsh and I've figured out it's down to the light. When I get on a Zoom call often the camera flicks on and I look horrific. But then I change the angle of the light and I'm fine.

I also hate candid wedding photos. Either I have an incredibly over-expressive face or everyone else just knows how to pose. Whenever an online wedding album gets sent around I flick through knowing at some point my gurning face will flash up on the screen. So annoying.

@Wolfgirrl I think you and I might be long lost sisters on that description!

The most attractive woman in our office looks gaunt and asymmetrical and odd in photographs. She is gorgeous in real life, though! It’s better to look better in real life than in photos.

I also look really weird. I also pose weirdly for pictures, like what I think is a small move or gesture looks so ridiculously exaggerated I don't have any idea how I didn't know I was doing it. Like leaning in. Everyone else slightly leans, I'm almost horizontal. Feel like I missed the memo on pictures and posing

The thing is has anyone ever looked at a photo of someone else and thought it doesn’t look like that person

Yes I have a very attractive friend who always turns heads & she looks bad in photos. It's weird.

I'm photogenic & look way better in photos than real life.

I look terrible in photos too OP but bizarrely find that I look ok if filmed. I put it down to looking better if everything's moving

I feel like this too. I think maybe I've got a flat face and the light doesn't bounce well in photos. I can actually look in the mirror and take a picture at the same time and they look so different.

Same - I'm actually quite attractive but In photos I gain a stone and look weird and square headed. I have had several people tell me I don't look at all like my photos. It's annoying

Oh gosh OP I hate photos of myself. I’m so fat!! I don’t look fat in the mirror. But in photos I’m a whale and it is mortifying every time cos I think oh no this is the me the world sees!