Here is my theory about why I dislike so many photos of myself: I don't look from the outside the way I feel from the inside. So it's always a little like looking at an almost-stranger.
You sure did hit the Scrappy on the head with that one, Owlet. We all have a mental image of ourselves, a constant self-reference, right? You can't see the expressions you're making without the benefit of a mirror, but you've got a pretty good mental approximation. You can imagine them all right.
Over here in this brain, which is the only one I can speak for, the mental image is largely influenced by the way I look in the mirror. I can go over, look in the mirror, say "Damn, Mirror Self, you lookin good", then have some portraits or candids taken and get angina over how they look. Especially the ones that catch half blinks and doofy grins-in-progress. "Dear lord, that's how people see me. All the time. The camera can't lie. Welp, let's fetch another paper bag and remember to cut eye holes in this one."
Thing is, both the camera and the mirror are telling the truth. The camera just has a bad habit of catching the truth when it doesn't look so hot. A screengrab taken when a newsreader is in the middle of a word, for instance, can become a hilarious image macro/LJ avatar.
In animation terms, your mental self images are key frames, the clear poses with clean expressions, while photographs mostly catch the in-betweens, the weird stretching and squashing bits needed to get to those poses. A good photographer can help and there are some really good tips in these comments here indeed to keep you from stretching and squashing, but for a large gang of folks I think it just comes down to luck.
We can form a club. Call it [No Picture Available].
So when the fates collide or collude or do whatever the hell they do and you find yourself with a pretty decent picture, you go right ahead and cherish it. Oh, and the really nice thing? People remember you and think of you in key frames too. That's what the brain does, and that's why it's so nice when you see a good picture of someone looking good. (Vindication of memory! Hoorah!)
no subject
You sure did hit the Scrappy on the head with that one, Owlet. We all have a mental image of ourselves, a constant self-reference, right? You can't see the expressions you're making without the benefit of a mirror, but you've got a pretty good mental approximation. You can imagine them all right.
Over here in this brain, which is the only one I can speak for, the mental image is largely influenced by the way I look in the mirror. I can go over, look in the mirror, say "Damn, Mirror Self, you lookin good", then have some portraits or candids taken and get angina over how they look. Especially the ones that catch half blinks and doofy grins-in-progress. "Dear lord, that's how people see me. All the time. The camera can't lie. Welp, let's fetch another paper bag and remember to cut eye holes in this one."
Thing is, both the camera and the mirror are telling the truth. The camera just has a bad habit of catching the truth when it doesn't look so hot. A screengrab taken when a newsreader is in the middle of a word, for instance, can become a hilarious image macro/LJ avatar.
In animation terms, your mental self images are key frames, the clear poses with clean expressions, while photographs mostly catch the in-betweens, the weird stretching and squashing bits needed to get to those poses. A good photographer can help and there are some really good tips in these comments here indeed to keep you from stretching and squashing, but for a large gang of folks I think it just comes down to luck.
We can form a club. Call it [No Picture Available].
So when the fates collide or collude or do whatever the hell they do and you find yourself with a pretty decent picture, you go right ahead and cherish it. Oh, and the really nice thing? People remember you and think of you in key frames too. That's what the brain does, and that's why it's so nice when you see a good picture of someone looking good. (Vindication of memory! Hoorah!)