Have you ever looked at a photograph of yourself and recoiled because you don’t like the way you look?  I guess that everyone has. They say that the camera never lies and yet most of us regularly dislike photographs of ourselves even if we are quite happy with our appearance when we look in the mirror. It is certainly a strange phenomenon but what is behind it?

Familiarity does not Breed Contempt

Our familiarity with our mirror image must surely lie at the heart of the issue. We see our reflections constantly as most homes feature several mirrors. We get used to the way we look in the mirror but what we are seeing is a reversed image and so we inevitably look different in photographs which can be unsettling. In life we tend to be more comfortable with the things that we are most familiar with.

There has been some research on this subject and this has revealed that when people are given the choice between a standard photo of themselves and one which has had the image reversed as in a mirror, most subjects will prefer the flipped image. The research has also shown that when it comes to our friends and family we tend to prefer photos of them to their mirror images and reflect what we are used to seeing. This fact also suggests that we are more comfortable with what we know best.

Portrait photographers report that the subjects of their pictures invariably choose to purchase a flipped image if the option is available whilst those choosing pictures of friends and loved ones invariably choose the conventional images.

Self-Adjustment

Then there is the fact that we tend to adjust ourselves when we look in the mirror until we like what we see, whereas with photographs we don’t see the result until it is too late and pictures are often taken when we are off-guard! The lighting around mirrors is often kinder to our look than sunlight or camera flashes too. What we see in the mirror has often been softened by the light and our blemishes and wrinkles are a little less obvious. It is also the case that we use mirrors most often when we are getting ready to go out or to do our make-up and therefore we are seeing ourselves at our best.

The Right Angle

There is only so much of ourselves that we can see in the mirror at any one time and we almost certainly adjust our pose to produce the most pleasing look. Photographs can capture features that we rarely see or which we were not aware of which can also be disconcerting and disappointing. If you didn’t know you had a bald patch developing then you might have a nasty surprise when you see a picture of the affected area!

Depending on the lens used and the distance of the subject from the camera, people can appear to be fatter in pictures too which doesn’t help. When we look in the mirror we focus only on our image but in pictures there is a context which is hard to ignore and which could alter our perceptions of our size.

It isn’t hard to see why we prefer our mirror images to photos. These are what we are used to, we are often looking in mirrors when we are at our best and we adjust ourselves to create the best look. The lighting is often favourable and we can’t see everything. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could have mirrors that reverse our image so we see ourselves as we would appear in a photograph? Perhaps not! I am not sure that I would want my bedroom mirror to be so honest!

Article by Sally Stacey