When you realise you aren't as attractive as you thought you were

[Iguessthatswhytheycallittheblues]

Has anyone else had this? I've just had back some photos that were done professionally and I don't look hideous, but I don't look great either, my nose looks bigger, baggy eyes, lines and teeth look worse, and camera really does add 10lbs.
It's knocked my confidence a bit I have to say, I'm wondering if this is how I look to everyone. I'd slept well and actually thought I looked good that day.

I think a good photographer can got a long way to help make you feel relaxed and get your best angle

Get a better photographer that sounds very unprofessional the lighting and pose should reduce any problems like a big nose and baggy eyes, not make features look worse. Ask them to re-do them.

You will look back at those photos in the future and think: ‘why did I think I looked bad? I wish I looked like that now!’

I've aged horrendously. It's not my face with a few wrinkles - I could deal with that - my whole face shape has changed, my eyes have changed, i just look so droppy and saggy. I feel so awful when I see myself now, especially when I compare myself to how I used to be when I was younger and attractive. I have pretty robust self esteem, but still it's upsetting sometimes.

I know it doesn't define me, the people that love me love me for myself, I have and always have had far more going for me than how I look, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't sadden me at all.

I think maybe this is the problem with taking photos for the photo, rather than candids that capture the moment.

What you describe triggers memories and has a emotional link, posed photos are sterile and there is nothing to anchor them. Maybe that's why they often look worse, too.

This is so true! I remember thinking how crap I looked in photos during my 20s. I look back at the those photos now and think I looked incredible!

Also helps if you just stop caring so much.

Yes, me too. I just look like a little old lady and I didn't realise.

@Iguessthatswhytheycallittheblues I get the contrary actually. I think I look horrible and finally I don't. Still don't like having my picture taken though.

Don’t look at yourself in the hairdresser’s mirror if you can avoid it. Cruel, bright light accentuates every wrinkle and sagging skin.

Some people (including me) are just not that photogenic. It’s a long standing joke in my family.
i know some people in real life who look beautiful on photos, but are very average in person and vice versa. I have headshots done for work yearly and they are always awful 😂so I think professional pics are usually the worst
I wouldn’t invest too much energy into it anyway

Perhaps you are just not photogenic, some look better in real life & vice versa.

I look ok on video and IRL but my DH has a knack for taking the most hideous photos of me 😂
I don’t know how he does it , I think he seems to capture me at such an angle that I look like I’m ancient , miserable and saggy .
There are a few of me though where I’m laughing and I like those

I now take a malicious pride in looking as though I’m an elderly man who’s been on a week long bender and whose hair has never met a comb. The young, attractive woman who had a sparkle in her eye belongs in a parallel universe.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we are all always our own worst critic.

Every single time I see myself in self-service till cameras, I'm reminded of all the true crime TV I watch where the supermarket CCTV footage is the 'last known images' of someone and it curdles my very soul 😂

It sounds as though your photographer just wasn't very good.

Poor lighting and poor camera angles etc will make you look like crap, even if you look pretty good in real life. They should also be able to give you advice on how to pose.

I think that professional photography is kind of a dying art now, unfortunately. I know an excellent portrait photographer who has done great work for me and my family over the years. An absolute genius at getting the lighting etc right, and getting a really good, almost 3-D looking, luminous shot (even of kids and of the less photogenic people). He's retired now, but over the last 15 years or so then he got less and less work, in spite of his skills, because people were relying more and more on their phone cameras and on the editing software.

The bottom just dropped out of the professional portrait photography market. People can take 1000 shots with a phone, select the best one, blur the skintone and generally edit the crap out of it, and they will end up with something they're happy with. It won't be as good as a good professional job, but it will be free. So it's not so much worth putting in the work and hours to become a full-time professional portrait photographer any more, even if you have the talent. Because in most cases there just aren't enough people who will pay for your skills.

We have photos of staff on a board at work. I've generally felt self conscious about photos of myself, though I took the opportunity to change mine a while back and am relatively happy with it. One day I studied other people's and realised a lot of the photos don't necessarily show people as I see them. A static shot only catches a moment in time and can make the same person look more attractive or somewhat weird!

Plus I recently came across photos of me from 15 to 20 years ago and in some I looked decidedly unattractive and in others impossibly glamorous - I never saw myself as glamorous back then but the addition of many years made me realise I might have been putting myself down.....maybe....

You have summed up how I feel, I don’t care so much about wrinkles but the sagging is something else, my lower face looks like it’s sliding off a cliff, my neck looks like a turkey, my eyelids have collapsed and now my upper arms have turned to crepe paper despite being a gym bunny all my adult life (the arms have really knocked my confidence) now rather than doing make up for fun and the glamour it’s to try and disguise everything and clothes shopping is trying to find things to hide my arms, pretty tops I would have bought just a few short years ago are a thing of the past for me. I’ve always been comfortable in my looks but have to admit ageing although I really do appreciate is a privilege can be a tough pill to swallow.

No. I’m well aware that I’m not as attractive as I think I am. It’s only when I catch myself in the mirror or have a photo taken that I realise. 😅 I don’t do camera contouring makeup or look good in photos.

As long as I’m happy with myself 90% of the time, in my bubble, then I’m fine as long as there are no cameras.

My mother was the same, delusional about our attractiveness. My Dsis x 2 think it’s hilarious. 😆

I always think this too. But when I see the hairdresser looking at me through the same mirror she always looks fabulous. It’s not fair.

When my youngest was a baby, my eldest used to stick a camera in my sleep-deprived face first thing in the morning. That was a great period for my self esteem! I for sure looked older then than I do now! I remember looking at other people’s ‘I’ve got a new baby’ photos all angelic and glowing. I looked like some old heroin addict.

If it helps, the photographer sounds shit. Also, like a PP said, imagine 90-year-old you looking at these pictures and see what you think then! Or hire someone else!

Men can’t take good pictures of their partner so don’t ask them to, you’ll feel worse.