Yesterday morning, you looked good. Yesterday evening,
before you went out, you're pretty sure you looked real good. So who the hell
is this schlub in the Facebook album from last night, tagged with your name?
It's a phenomenon nestled somewhere between universal
annoyance and urban legend: People see something different in the mirror than
they do in photographs. More often than not, the former is controlled,
predictable and palatable, while the latter is an endless source of nasty
little surprises.
So, why the disparity? The answer is complicated, but it
boils down to this: Your eyes, your brain, your mirror and your camera are all
conspiring to sabotage your body image.
It's the camera
The camera adds ten pounds! At a certain point, this obscure
TV adage became folk wisdom. While this particular effect probably refers
specifically to television, and in particular the distorting effect of the
convex curvature of older TV sets, it seems to hold true for regular folks,
sometimes in still pictures as well as video.
Cameras sensors may be absorbing the same photons as our
eyes, but they're doing so through a complex lens that can actually change the
way you look. Most cameras, from the dumpiest point-and-shoots to high-end
DSLRs, ship with lenses capable of adjusting to wide, zoom-ed out perspective,
and tight, zoomed-in views. At both extremes, the lens plays weird—and
potentially ugli-fying tricks.
A wide angle lens does as its name suggests, capturing an
image spread over a wide angle. The field of view in a wide-angle shot is
wide—wider than that of your own eyes. In pulling this off, some lenses create
a sort of fisheye effect, which can bloat subjects in the middle, and stretch
those on the outside. This, however, is instantly recognizable, and probably
won't cause too much anxiety. In other words, If the shot looks like a still
from an episode of Jackass, you probably shouldn't let it figure into your
self-image too much.
But there's a subtler effect of wide lenses called
wide-angle distortion: Since the field of view is super-wide, objects close to
the camera will seem large, while objects just a bit further away will seem
very small. Here's a scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels that
illustrates the effect, starting a 4:18. (NSFW, sorta.)
The net effect is an illusion of size, both width and
height. Subtle, sure, but it's there.
Telephoto lenses are usually seen as more flattering, giving
the impression that the subject is flattened, and slightly compressing the
width of your foremost features, like your nose or breasts. So you might want
to think twice before fleeing the pesky paparazzi and their fancy zoom lenses;
it's the tourist with the pocket cam whose snaps will make you look fat on the
Internet.
Lens distortion isn't the only way a camera can screw with
your visage. Flash illuminates subjects harshly, turning elegant faces normally
accented by soft shadows into a flat, shadowless, cadaveric horror shows.
Whether these effects are annoying or used to advantage,
they mean that what you see in photos is different than what you see in the
mirror.
It's the Mirror
I don't mean to imply that the camera is the only liar,
here, because mirrors are just as guilty. For one, they flip your image. The
You you're most familiar with, then, is actually an exact opposite of how you
look to others. Granted, it's an intuitive reversal, so it doesn't bother us
when we see it, but it implants a self-image that's intrinsically wrong.
On top of that, there's the problem of perspective. People
stand close to mirrors, but see their whole selves. This provides a reasonable
perspective, but a unique one: it's the perspective of a person standing near
to you, eyes proportionately closer to your head than to your feet. This is the
perspective of a partner in conversation, not a photographer. Looking a certain
way from three feet away doesn't mean you'll look the same from 15.
It's you
The physics of lenses and mirrors offer solutions to specific
problems, i.e. OH MY GOD SO THAT'S WHY MY WONDERFUL BUTT LOOKS SO FAT ON FILM!
However, these explanations don't speak to a more relatable weirdness about
photography. It's a feeling of uncanniness. It's a sense that something about
the photographed self seems unquantifiably different than the mirrored self.
It's in your head.
Think about the act of looking on a mirror. It's incredibly
limited You pretty much need to be facing forward, or else you can't see. You
will always be looking slightly down at the rest of your body. You will pose
for yourself, to achieve the most flattering look. You will hide fat behind
folds of clothes, or minimize a strange facial feature with a tilt of the head.
Other people, including photographers, don't see this
version of you. They see a version that you are rarely privy to, and that can
seem wildly foreign to our ingrained sensibilities. As Slate explains, it's a
bit like how people hate their own voices on tape, doubly so because we know
that those foreign, goofball intonations represent that way that everyone else
hears us. In photos, we see ourselves in various states of motion, in different
contortions and from uncaring, neutral perspectives. Lenses may distort, sure,
but in a powerful way, these uncomfortable photographs are closer to reality
than our carefully images in the mirror. (J. Herrman, gizmodo.com)
