To request no more photos are taken of me?

[mrlistersgelfbride]

I'm almost 40.
I've aged terribly over the last 18 months or so.
It's so depressing seeing photos of myself that others have taken I'm actually having a little cry tonight because of it.

My under eyes are all wrinkly and puffy and my eyes are sunken. One side of my face seems to have drooped a little too!
I've always had a very large nose, I meant to get surgery when I was young but I never did and it never put men off when I was young which surprised me. ..and now I have DD I'd rather spend the money on something else.

But quite often friends take photos of me and post them online. And over the last year the photos of me have been hideous!
I've seen a few different groups of friends over the weekend and a couple of group photos where taken.
I look dreadful. My friends are similar age but I'm definitely the ugly duckling. They haven't aged hardly at all.
I'm only a 10-12 and I look terribly dumpy and fat. Some of my friends are an 18 and they don't look fat.
What's the secret? Day dresses? I usually wear tops jumpers and jeans or trousers.
I've asked friends to delete the photos, as I've done in the past, but they haven't and often say 'oh you look fine'. And leave them on social media.

Also my boss sometimes takes photos for work and I look awful then and I dread it too!

Can I request that no one takes my photo again? How? Has anyone done this? I'm actually thinking of not going out socially for a while because of it.

I'm saving for Botox but it's expensive.
I'm a kind funny person and I'd rather be known for that. I'm happy not having to look at myself!

And by the way I do the usual, have a healthy diet, exercise and drink water. I try to get sleep but I often wake up naturally after 6 hours.
Always been like that.
I probably do look permanently tired.

Is there anything I can do?

Sorry this is a very garbled post. Thanks if you read to the end!

I feel the pain. I look hideous in photos too. Old and tired. I don't mind an ok photo but wish people would ask before posting

I'm only a 10-12 and I look terribly dumpy and fat. Some of my friends are an 18 and they don't look fat

How can that possibly be true? This must be in your head.

Maybe it's the angle but it genuinely does look like that. I carry all my weight on my tummy.

I think it's all in your head @mrlistersgelfbride and there is no WAY you look like you think you do. And as a pp said, there is no way you're a size 10 and look 'fat' and 'dumpy' and your size 16-18 friends don't look fat!

I think you may need some kind of counselling. Yor self esteem sounds like it's on the floor.

I hate how I look in photos too.

I didn't like how I looked in my wedding photos. But now ten years on I love looking at them. Similarly I hate how I look in photos with my DC, but I know it's important to have them.

If you duck out of every photo, I think in ten years they'll be coming up as memories and you'll be sad you're not in them.

I'm sure you look much better than you think, we're all our worst critics. And even if you're the ugliest troll to ever walk the earth, your friends and family love you and want a photo with you to remember how much fun you had on that night out.

What I'm saying is, try grin and bear it, I think you'll be happier in the long run.

Thanks for your reply. I do look like this unfortunately!
I'm sure everyone has hang ups but it's hard when out of people of a similar age, I have clearly aged the worst.

some people just aren't photogenic. my mum is one, and I'm also like that.

I have a simple principle of not looking at photos of me. I know that a photo is not a good representation of the person I really am, and it is not very relevant to me. so I just ignore them.

I have been thinking I'm like this too. I just don't photograph well - I have a wonky smile too- but I maybe I look at little better in real life .

Thanks for your reply. It's helpful x

I don’t have my photo taken, unless I trust the person not to put it on social media. I’m not at all photogenic but happy to have photos, I just don’t want to be on line. All my friends are fine with this, but I have a couple of colleagues and acquaintances who struggle to get their heads around the idea that not everyone wants to be on line. I’m first to volunteer to take group shots and if any tries the whole ‘oh it’s fine’ crap, I just give them the look my mum used to give me when I was pushing my luck and very politely tell them that it’s actually not fine and I don’t want to fall out with them over it. It works for me.

@Whothefuckdoesthat Thanks!
Volunteering to do group shots sounds like it could work.
How did you first voice that you didn't want photos to appear online to friends?

Have you thought about looking for tips on how to photograph better? There's definitely stuff around how you stand and what you do with your hands to look good in photos. Your friends may just be really good at posing!

For me it’s not looking a certain way that’s the problem, although I don’t love that either, it’s ’can we have a night PLEASE where people can relax and feel like they can be themselves without you constantly snapping them on the dance floor, up their nose, when they so much as enter the vicinity of your camera phone - I hate people taking unsolicited pics! And it’s not my issue, it’s insane snapping away at folk nonstop like this. I don’t want to be photographed or filmed! It posted! Why do people need to take pictures of people who don’t know it’s happening?or want it to happen! I hate it! I would just never do that! If y I re one of these ‘snappers’ what is wrong with you! Stop it!

I’ve never had FB or Instagram or anything similar so before any photos have been taken, I’ve just said ‘You won’t be putting that on line, will you?’ If they said yes, I just said ‘oh no, not for me thanks’. My friends are all lovely and I’m sure they think I’m being ridiculous, but none of them would dream of putting me on line. I wouldn’t be friends with them if I had to battle with them every time I saw them. If they want one for their social media, they ask me to either budge out of the way for a minute, or I offer to take it for them.

Everyone ages, we may not like what we see in photos but would you really not like your children not to have photos of their mum to look back on? I am the first to admit that I’m vain but I never regret any photos taken of me and my children. One day they will look back and remember those fond memories.

I am fat and no oil painting. I don’t want photos taken and I don’t want people putting photos online without my agreement.

However, my Dad died on 1992 when he was 50. There are hardly any photos of him as it costs money for photos back then and he was the one holding the camera most of the time. I wish I had loads of photos to look back on because he was perfect to me.

I don’t want my children not having photos of me. They won’t see dumpy, tired, thinning hair. They will see Mum. I don’t want them to wish they had more photos of me.

A friend of mine is a size 30. She posts a lot of photos online but she is always at the back, hiding behind people. He son was 18 last month. She is hiding behind him, using his body as a shield so people can’t seen how large she is. It’s very sad. She is a lovely, kind person. I wish she felt more confident. People adore her, her kindness, warm spirit, laughter, hilarious tales, she is someone you want to be with. I wish she could see herself as we see her.

I had thyroid eye disease, look it up it was so disfiguring.
I said many times I did not want my picture taken by friends and each time I would be cajoled into it. If I stuck to my guns it would lead to cross words. So in my experience, people think the right to take your picture is more important than your right to decline.
these pictures occasionally surface on SM and I hate them as much as I ever did.
hope you find a way forward

Your friends are being dicks refusing to remove pics of you from SM if you've asked them too.

I'd just say no more pics, I think. It's hardly a necessity, is it?!

@mrlistersgelfbride If you're saving for botox now, what are you going to do in 3-4 months when you need more botox? Are you once again going to ask not to have photos taken or are you going to be on the never ending saving cycle for botox every 3-4 months?

Haven't rtft but just wanted to sneak in and say, as a professional photographer, please always remember that while photos are really important, they are only a tiny snapshot of a nanosecond of time. In real life you're moving and talking and no one is looking at that specific pose for longer than the nanosecond it lasts.

I mainly photograph women with their own businesses but also do some commercial and event work and always, always have the conversation afterwards with any speakers who ask "do I actually look like that?" - and the answer is always yes and no - yes that's you and I don't Photoshop, but no, that's not necessarily what people see during your lecture or presentation (or in your case your time with your friends and family) because we see the living, breathing, person in front of us.

During a shoot I'll guide posing for the best shots but for candid phone photos it's so much more about just capturing a memory 💙

And when I see a photo of myself I always immediately notice the things I don't like, but when I see photos of the people I love I just see them as a whole.

Plus the photos I pick as my faves from every client shoot are almost never exactly the same as the client pics, because we all see ourselves differently from how others do.

I hope that makes a sort of sense, it's late and I've not slept very well so this might be a bit garbled, sorry!

I sympathise totally.
i look terrible in photos, just awful . I’ve not aged well at all, my eyelids are nearly covering my eyes, my cheeks are sunken, I’m red and blotchy, huge double chin which I’ve always had even when I’m not overweight and I look permanently tired. I’ve aged in the last 3 years due to terrible events in my life and I think peri meno is playing a part. I always seem to be snapped with my mouth slightly open looking gormless and I look like a man in drag .

i was tagged on social media by a friend who found a picture of me in the paper about 15 years ago which was taken by the school with my daughter, holding this prize thing and I looked lovely (hated the pic at the time) not pretty, not fat, not grey, just fresh and natural and I had a lovely smile. Now that smile is crooked, my teeth are crap and I look gormless.

i ruin photos.

YABU for being so incredibly hard on yourself.

And over the last year the photos of me have been hideous!

I can guarantee, you will be the only one who thinks these photos are hideous. Your friends, family, even strangers will not think you look hideous in them.

In group photos, the first thing we look for is ourselves. We look straight at ourselves and start picking out all our “flaws”. Flaws that other people can’t see. I bet you don’t look at other people in the photo and think “Oh Julie’s eyes look really sunken and tired don’t they?” Or “Gosh, look at the state of Helen. Why’s her face all droopy on one side?” We’re all our own biggest critics. We’re all guilty of it.

Some of my friends are an 18 and they don't look fat. What's the secret?

They don’t have a secret. They’re human beings. Just like you are. Although some people are better at styling and dressing to suit their own body shapes and heights.

Can I request that no one takes my photo again? How? Has anyone done this?

All you can do is firmly say, “If you’re going to take a photo, please let me know beforehand and I will step aside out of frame”. But I’d imagine your friends will be probably be concerned for you. This level of disgust for yourself isn’t healthy OP. It’s really sad. If one of my friends was desperate to not have their photo taken because they were so unhappy with their appearance I’d feel upset for them.

I'm saving for Botox but it's expensive.

I’d never normally recommend aesthetic treatments. But if you are dead set on getting a treatment I would avoid Botox and go for Skin Boosters instead. (Seventy Hyal is the brand I have). Lasts longer than Botox, but you can do your own research.

But honestly OP, I really hope you’re okay and do learn to love and accept yourself for who you are. Beauty is subjective. And like you said, you’re a kind and funny person and that’s all that should matter.

This is such a lovely post 🥰 I completely get what you mean, because there are virtually no photos of my dad from the first 10 years of my life - he was always behind the camera.

OP - this doesn’t mean you have to suddenly become comfortable with having your photo taken or uploaded to social media. You should always feel comfortable saying no. But it’s nice to know that someone else might feel differently about those pictures.

Yes, you can tell people not to take photos, then move away when they start posing.

I once hid under a table in a restaurant to avoid being in a group photo, I just slid under the table and no one noticed, until I crawled out and a few were laughing their heads off.

Where there is a will there is a way!

I am often complimented on being beautiful. I am fat, but I have never been short of people commenting on my looks.

In photos I look like an obese gollum. I am not joking... Even my mother winces hahahaha

I am profoundly unphotogenic. It's like all my features mash together turning me into a playdough blob with a hunchback.

I've learnt two things.

1. I just can't take a nice photo.
2. I do need to work on my posture lol.

I promise some of us look hideous in photos but okay in real life. You may be one of us.

I understand not wanting it on social media. Photos are important though as when you die it's what helps the memories. There is a balance to be had.