That horrible feeling when you went out feeling fabulous… and then saw a photo of yourself ☹️

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Just what the thread title said, really.

I know it’s silly but I’ve felt miserable all day.

I honestly thought I looked great when I went out for a friend’s 50th last night. Not saying I’m a supermodel but I really did think I looked nice. Had an outfit I’d spent time thinking about (I love clothes), my hair done, etc.

Saw the photos this morning as friends started to send them and I look awful. My outfit looked nothing like I thought, I was trying to channel minimalist sophistication but it just looked plain and made me look blobby. I looked much heavier and ‘bigger’ than I thought (I’m not remotely overweight but I definitely could tone up) and my hair looked awful.

I’m not usually critical of my appearance, I’m old enough to accept my bad points and work around them, and emphasise my good points. Which is what I thought I’d done.

I hadn’t. And now I feel really crap about myself, and silly for thinking I looked good. And wondering if I have the energy to start a new fitness/de-blobbing campaign. Which until this morning I didn’t think I was in quite such need of.

Just wondering if anyone else can relate?

BLOODY camera phones ☹️

This is me all the bloody time. I made a huge effort for a work do recently. New dress, heels, full face of make up, fancy hair do. I look HORRIFIC in every pic. Meanwhile, this week it’s been a million degrees so I’ve been pinning my hair up in messy milkmaid braids to make sure it’s all off my face and neck, only wearing a bit of tinted moisturiser with SPF, and wearing supermarket t shirt dresses and apparently this looks better than all that effort. Stupid body and hair betraying me!!

I hate photos, no matter how good I think I look or how much effort I somehow look like the worst mumsie blob version of myself that I make a big effort to avoid.

Yes my makeup disappears too. I don't know how? I go to the loo, look in the mirror and I look like a fucking clown 🤡 so where does it go in photos? My makeup is camera shy 🤷

We are also incredibly sensitive about our own photos (well I am). At work we all have our photos (faces) displayed on a wall. I recently had a new one done because I looked weird in the original. I dressed in clothes / colour I felt were flattering, worked out the best way to hold my head and smile and checked with the photographer before agreeing to the final one. Now I'm happy with it. (I look quite glam in it).

But I have also sometimes studied other people's (which initially seem fine) and realised that if they were of me, I'd hate them - big or odd shaped nose, staring eyes etc. Even staff members I think of as very attractive can look odd in them.

You can learn how to pose to look good- my teen dd is a master of this and has even given me tips on how to stand (which I can't remember, of course). But at an event where they are taken at random, you don't even get a chance to do this. Generally I hate all photos of me.

I do think I look fatter in photos. I'm not overweight (BMI 22). People generally tell me I'm slim and I think I look slim in the mirror. However, in photos I think I look fat! Why?!? But then other people look the same so maybe I do look like that in real life? So why don't I look as fat in mirrors (and no I don't have special slimming mirrors)...

SomethingNasty, I love you!
It is nice to be recognised - and yes, I DO call back 🙂

@RenoDakota ❤( x 69)

@hopeishere its the worst! I’ve changed my Facebook settings to approve any photos I’m tagged in before they appear on my page, I don’t think I’ve accepted one single picture in 2 years. Somehow my friends are looking bronzed and glorious and beautiful, then there’s me, gurning & shiny & looking in the wrong direction. & the more aware I am of it the worse I seem to look, an older relative wanted a group photo of all her family recently, I read that to have a nice photo I should angle my chin up & put my tongue on the roof of my mouth so I did that & it’s such a lovely picture of everyone EXCEPT me, i look like I’m trying really hard not to crap my pants instead of the relaxed self assured vibe I was hoping to impart.

Oh god yes. I’m still haunted by this happening at a friends wedding a few years ago. I loved my dress, I had cool glasses, nice hair, i felt great. I love dancing so danced with abandon. Friend sent me photos afterwards and I saw myself careering across the dance floor looking like a fat, jowly, menopausal godzilla. I was horrified, and also wondered why the helll she sent me it?!

I always look like I expect to in selfies, and like princess fiona in other people pics. I assume becoming used to seeing the reverse image of myself (in mirrors) so the selfie reversed version is the 'me' face, if that makes sense,

Also, they're always a better angle and cut off my body, which is preferable. Having a baby is also helpful, I can hide a lot of the bits I don't like behind her!

On the flip side I have a lovely friend who is attractive. I found it very refreshing that she told me she was photogenic. She was not being boastful, just honest.

And she is right. In photos she looks amazing.

She can be sitting next to a bunch of folk who are just as attractive, or even more so, but as soon as the shutter clicks something magic happens and in the photo she looks so much better than everyone else.

I take comfort in this as I always look utterly shite in all photos.

I think other people genuinely just... care less about what we look like? They're not mortified on our behalf. So they don't think we'll mind being tagged.

I didn't like how I looked in photos even as a kid. I never felt it looked like me. My mum has always been somewhat unhelpful - "Well, of course it looks like you, who else do you think it is?" Used to drive me to tears as a self-conscious teenager. I'd rather she had agreed it looked nothing like me than have to think I was walking around looking like an awkward stranger.

These days I'm just inured to it. My wedding photos looked nice in themselves but like a much smaller, cuter person. My OH is tall and slender and I looked like a reasonably attractive hobbit marrying an elf. I'm still constantly amazed by how short I look in photos, never mind how fat - you'd think I'd at least know what height I am by now?

I didn't want a photographer when I got married, either.
I was overruled.

I loathe every single wedding photo I had taken.
There's one where I'm laughing, and i look like the cartoon character from the Reach toothbrush advert. 😫

I think self acceptance is the key! I have spent so long hating anyone taking my photo due to my weight that now that I’ve lost a lot I take photos purely for me and appreciating my progress!

Ha! My " friend" once sent me a photo she had taken without my knowledge of overweight me sitting slumped on a sofa, reading...so, looking down with all the bulging, jowly horrificness that implies. I very much took that as a hostile act!

Camera phones are very unforgiving I think. And people can zoom in too. They're awful.

I am not really under any illusions but I feel I scrub up quite well.

However I am overweight and my hair needs recolouring.

One of my brothers took a photo of me leaning near my parents' head stone. I wondered who the ratty old woman was! Oh! Me!

I’ve just seen a photo of me and my friend on holiday. I’m a size 10, she’s a size 20. We’re the same distance from the camera and I look wider than her in the photo. In real life I’m much smaller. This is my luck in every photo ever. I know in my head that my sister and mum are pretty in real life but look awful in photos too but it’s horrible when you think you’ve been walking around looking nice and then see a photo where you look 5 sizes bigger than you are.

I also have a photogenic colleague who looks like Gal Godot in photos. In real life she’s got a big nose and greasy skin, she’s nice-looking but nothing special. It’s definitely some kind of voodoo.

I’m sorry but this made me really laugh 😆 I think it was the sweaty pack of ham that did it! Of which i’m sure you look nothing like!

This is a definite thing!

People don't look the same in photo's, as they do in real life.

A customer of mine, is also a friend on FB. She is absolutely stunning. Her eyes are the brightest blue, and she has lovely cheekbones. Whenever she posts a photo of herself on FB, she looks awful, fat faced and dull eyed. It's SO bizarre.

My sister sent me photo's of her new haircut the other day, and she looked 10 years older than she does in real life.

My DH's lanyard photo for work is HIDEOUS. He's looking down slightly, so his chin looks like it's trebled. In real life, he is handsome!

My adult son always looks like he has a fat face in photo's - he doesn't though! And my daughter's chin looks larger (double chin) in pics than in real life.

Another one of my customers, is very lined, with dark circles under her eyes - she applies a filter to all her photo's, which removes all the impurities, and makes her look 15 years younger - which makes me cringe a bit.

I look bizarrely photogenic on video calls - no filters on - and I often wonder if colleagues who "met" me that way were disappointed at my plainness in real life!