Main image via Care 2
Have you ever noticed that your face looks a little weird in photos compared to your face when you look in a mirror? Like you look really good in the mirror, but then when you try to take a selfie, suddenly your nose looks crooked, and why does one side of your face look flat?
Well, there’s a perfectly logical and scientific explanation for this!
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We Expect A Mirror Image
The major factor of why our photos look less than desirable is because photos show us the flipped version of what we see in the mirror.
When you take selfies using the front-facing camera, the camera captures an image of your face as others see it when they look directly at you in real life.
According to a 2014 article by The Atlantic, seeing our faces flipped can feel a little weird. One reason is because our faces aren’t symmetrical, so certain features don’t line up in photos the same way they do in a mirror. That’s why your face looks a little flat on one side or your nose looks a little crooked.
“People have grown up [looking] in the mirror and that’s what they believe everybody sees, when it’s the reverse of that, which is really weird,” says Jay Perry, a Canadian photographer based in Ontario, United States. “Mirrors are kind of lies.”
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We Prefer The Familiar
Most of the time, the image of us that we see is the one reflected in a mirror. We’re so used to that image that we build a preference to it.
According to something called “Mere Exposure Theory”, repeatedly encountering something makes us like it more.
Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Centre, explains further: “Looking at yourself in the mirror becomes a firm impression. You have that familiarity. Familiarity breeds liking. You’ve established a preference for that look of your face.”
Additionally, when we look in the mirror, we’re looking at our faces in motion, not completely still like in a photo. You can’t zoom and focus on a single area of your face in the mirror the same way you can in a digital photo.
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The Technical Reason
The lens you use on your camera can also change the way you look in photos. For example, a longer lens would make you look slimmer, whereas a shorter lens would make you look wider.
How close you are to the camera also affects the way you look. Facial features closest to the lens are going to look bigger—like noses.
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However, the most important thing to take from this though, is that the way we look in photos is the way the rest of the world sees us. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, studies show that other people generally like the version of you they see, as opposed to the image of yourself you see.
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Article via Huffington Post
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