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:(

People on here who say the camera doesn't lie it definitely can! I can love a photo of me and hate another that's been taking minutes apart. My friends joke how unphotogenic I am and how I look a lot better in real life. I have another friend who looks amazing in photos but more average in real life. She is insecure online dating because she knows she looks better in photos. Whereas when I was online dating I used to get a lot of comments that I look better than my photos

I used to be told i looked how they expected. So the photos that made me want to weep, that is the real me. The attractive woman in the mirror isca delusion my subconscious constructed to protect me!

It’s definitely the symmetry thing. My face is really asymmetrical too. I’m ok looking in RL but cameras hate me.

I used to have this. It got much better after I learned, properly learned, how to do my makeup, especially if I know I'm going to be photographed. I know that sounds simplistic, but it worked for me.

I think it’s to do with your facial structure

When I was a teen my face was a bit chubby although it look really defined in the mirror. Now that I’m slightly older my jawline is completely sharp, my chin isn’t weak and my cheekbones are more defined. I look more like my mirror self now without any additional effort.

@Bluntness100

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

We’ve all seen unflattering photos. But for most, we never look at a photo and think it doesn’t look like the person or they look like someone else. But we think it about ourselves.

It’s like logically we tell ourselves rhe photo doesn’t look like us and we are not photogenic but have never actually met another human that applies to.

I think it’s because we see one image in the mirror when it’s reflected back but a totally different one in the photo, and we struggle to comprehend we look like that.

And I say that as someone who also thinks I’m deeply unphotogenic.

This is the harsh reality!

I might think "That's a really terrible photo of so-and-so" but I very rarely think "Wow! Is that her? I'd never have guessed. She looks completely different in real life!"

So while it's true that some people are more photogenic than others, it's not the case that photos look completely different to what we 'really' look like, however much we like to think otherwise.

I think part of the issue is that we subconsciously 'pose' when looking at ourselves in the mirror. Or at least I do. Plump up my lips, raise my chin, flick back my hair. Often I take fright when I accidentally catch a glimpse of myself walking past a mirror, because I haven't got my 'mirror face' on! But that's the 'me' that everyone else sees, not my posed face when inspecting myself!

And bad though still photos can be, Zoom meetings are just horrendous. I've been working via Teams for the past 8 weeks and I wince every time I see myself. I look like a hag! And I'm not that awful to look at in real life - really!

And again I like to tell myself "Oh it's just the light or the angle! I don't actually look like that", but when I see my colleagues on camera, they do more or less look like themselves. So that must be the real me! Yikes!

Same reason you don’t think recordings of your voice sound like you. Your brain.

I do think we see what we want to see when we look in the mirror. We pose and focus on our positives without even realising. Sometimes I catch sight of myself in a shop window and am horrified. I remember being in an exercise class in a room with mirrors everywhere. I looked at one woman and thought oh, at least she's fatter than me....it was me

I think this is pretty common. Even on gorgeous models/celebrities. Try pausing a film with a good looking actor/actress on at a random point and I bet you they don’t look so gorgeous.

I think we need motion a lot of the time. I take some hideous photos!

I just chatted to my boyfriend about this and said "I'm on this thread and I was talking about how we both look bad in photos and how it's not true that the camera never lies"

And he said "what? You look fine in photos"

Doh

Totally know what you mean. If I pose and angle myself in the right way, I take a good picture. If someone takes one of me candidly I look awful. I would say I am attractive in real life but then wonder if that's actually true since everyone is seeing the candid me all the time 🙈

I hear you, OP.

A little trick I found before lockdown, when trying on a dress that I wanted natural feel for how it looked, rather than me standing awkwardly like one of the Queen’s Guards, is the ‘live’ edit on iPhone photos, teamed with getting Ds to take lots of photos with me moving. When you then edit it’s like a mini video that you can choose a ‘key’ photo. It was an important dress (wedding) and Ds did a sterling job

This actually made me feel less shite about the way I often look on photos.

I often think that well defined eyebrows (even those which are OTT) look amazing on camera, whereas my defined but light in colour eyebrows disappear on camera so I look like a lightbulb!

I’ve been told I’m attractive by lots of people, often think I don’t look that bad for my age and then see photos of myself and think urgh!

Live is definitely a good way to do it. Although I avoid photos it definitely helps me find a decent one of the kids. ‘Portrait’ is also really nice.

I’ve been told I’m attractive by lots of people, often think I don’t look that bad for my age and then see photos of myself and think urgh!

Same. In my 50s and I like to think that I am still reasonably attractive. But I invariably hate myself in photos and worse still on camera. Though one good thing to come out of lockdown and the crapness that are Teams 'meetings' is that I've become pretty much inured to the horror of seeing myself on video. I used to be traumatised by the sight of myself but now I'm just 'eh'. Still have my bad days when I feel the need to say 'Oh gosh sorry, my cameras not working today!'

The worst of all though is on the occasions when your lap top goes blank and you can see yourself and you're there with about a million chins staring miserably down your chest at the screen and you think jesus is that how i look all evening?!?!

This made me laugh out loud, in an 'it's funny 'coz it's true' sort of way.

Worse yet is when you accidentally turn on the 'selfie' mode on your phone, and you're left staring at this multi-chinned hag who could frighten small children! Shudders!

This is one of the funniest threads. It just goes to show that those of us that are beautiful in real life but look like shit in photos are blessed with hilarious banter. From Mrs Potato Face

I was telling a friend who is a stylist about this. Incidentally she refuses to have a photo taken ever as she claims she looks like one of the vegetable animals that people make for county show competitions in all photos including her wedding photos. Her tip is find a smile that works and the rest will follow, stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth as it takes up a double chin, only show teeth if they're good, do a jaunty close lipped one sided smile to add a bit of angle or definition or something, always always smile with your eyes. Smiley potato in a wig it is then.

We see far too many photos of ourselves these days because of smart phones. Back in the good old days, photos were only usually taken when we were scrubbed up for occasions. Now everyone’s snap happy and we’re bombarded with endless photos.

Having said that, I have always looked like a plasticine troll in photographs 😂

she claims she looks like one of the vegetable animals that people make for county show competitions in all photos including her wedding photos.

This thread is hilarious.

I haven't had so much fun on MN since the last fart thread.

“It's not just that your face in a mirror is reversed. It's more than that. I think. My face is asymmetrical. Not terribly but it is a bit. I'm so used to what I see in the mirror that I think I look attractive in the mirror and then when I look at a photo, I am brought up short by seeing the asymmetry that the I'm inured to when I just look in the mirror.”

But you’ve just described the mirror phenomenon.

Same here. I look revolting in photos but think I’m passable in real life. My friend recently took a photo of me where I looked great and much younger than I am, but I can’t work out how to ask for a copy without sounding like a vain egotist.

I will add that my husband finds it hilarious how awful I look in photos

@Binkybix

Same here. I look revolting in photos but think I’m passable in real life. My friend recently took a photo of me where I looked great and much younger than I am, but I can’t work out how to ask for a copy without sounding like a vain egotist.

Why should that worry you? Just say, "Could you send me that photo from whenever? There aren't many photos of me that I like, but I do like that one."

Death to this horrible phenomenon of women being afraid of liking how they look or appearing vain.

I just look like Shrek all the time so no advice here, sorry!