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Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
13,583 posts, read 15,659,695 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
I think your comparison with the movie star photos doesn't show much difference. He looks like a star in the first photo because it's a close-up, and his face is framed in a dramatic way.
We must have very different perceptions, because I see a very different character in each of the photos, regardless of how the photos are framed.
You also have to keep in mind that no one is as critical of photos of you as you are. Everyone looks at group shots and thinks, "Dave looks normal, Amy looks good, that's a great shot of Sarah. OMG what's wrong with my hair? Why is my eye doing that? Is my skin always that blotchy?" No one else is seeing that but you.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
13,583 posts, read 15,659,695 times
Reputation: 14049
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle
You also have to keep in mind that no one is as critical of photos of you as you are. Everyone looks at group shots and thinks, "Dave looks normal, Amy looks good, that's a great shot of Sarah. OMG what's wrong with my hair? Why is my eye doing that? Is my skin always that blotchy?" No one else is seeing that but you.
Quite right. Also, something I noticed as I was going through photo sets of people I know who have public Facebook albums, is that it's obvious which photos were taken with a good camera and which were taken with one of low quality. It's something I never noticed before since I'm not really a "social media" guy who looks at a large number of photos on Facebook and when I was younger all the photos we took were with decent cameras (e.g. Cannon AE-1) that used large lenses.
Something else we do is normalize photos of others, so if we know what they look like firsthand, our mind "fills in the blanks" and we make them look better in a photo than they actually would appear to somebody simply relying on the subject's appearance in that one photo and who has never seen the subject before. It can be really startling how bad some people look in some photos as opposed to others taken at the same location and under the same lighting conditions if you really look with a stringent eye, simply due to the camera used.
So let's all do the world a favor by taping over our phone's camera lens and throwing away cheap "instamatic" cameras.
All this about 'subjective' vs. 'objective' viewing is true, as is the stuff about lighting, make-up etc.
And then there's me. I look drunk or sleepy in every single picture. I've had professional photographers tell me I'm hard to get a good picture of.
It runs in the family. My mother has the same problem. Face to face, we are normal, even attractive. In photo after photo, drunk or sleepy. I do not drink and I get plenty of rest. But when I smile, my eyes disappear and my mouth is wider on one side than the other.
The best shots -- which isn't saying much -- include a not quite half-smile, eyes as wide as they'll go, and a slight tilt of my head to the right. Everything facial will look half-way decent...but my hair will choose that moment to turn weird.
I don't understand all the technical reasons behind it, but I have always had this issue. Crushed my teenaged dreams of modeling, in fact!
I can get a decent picture of my self, using my own digital camera, but it will literally take me 100 tries to get one that is not great, but "decent".
I have found ONE photographer that manages to capture me in a flattering way. She's a personal friend and a pro photographer and she has photographed me, and done portraits of my kids for over a decade now. I have had my photo taken by many paid professionals; she has been the only one to produce pics for me where I don't look cockeyed or drunk or otherwise messed up. Now, she still has to take a lot of pics (of me) to get some good ones that's better than what I got before!
I actually paid her plane fare across five states to have her shoot my wedding. So, there's got to be something about the right photographer with the right knowledge and the right camera (I guess)... it's been my experience anyway.
It's all about lighting. If there is artificial light, make sure it is hitting your face. It will get rid of weird shadows and looking tired. If it is sunlight, you don't want the sun to hit your face full on. It is too harsh. You also don't want it directly behind you, because your face will be in shadow and look grayish.
Good lighting is usually key, I consider myself to be a good looking guy in rl but in pictures I'm just bleh, after taking pictures during different times I noticed I only looked bad in warm natural lighting but during sun set in cooler lighting I looked great
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