Heart and Mind

How You Look in Picures

Ever see a picture of yourself and think you look bad in it?

Doesn't that suck?

You know why most of us hate that? Because we worry that the way we look in a picture is actually what we look like. If the picture looks unflattering for some reason—whether it's just taken when we're making a bad face or because we really don't like something about our appearance that we feel is accenuated in the shot—we start thinking, "Oh, sh*t! This is how the rest of the world actually sees me!" It can be very daunting, because we only are accustomed to seeing ourselves from certain angles and we may not be comfortable seeing what others see, even though we probably look fine to everyone else. After all, they're accustomed to seeing us from all angles.

Well, here's the thing I've been mulling over...

We should be concerned with how we look in pictures, but not for the reasons above. Frankly, it doesn't really matter how we look in real life, even if we don't look that good. Oh, sure...looking good could get you more dates and make you more palpitable to look at when a friend is having a conversation with you. But, essentially, the present is very transient and it's always immediately gone. It instantly becomes the past. And as more time passes, people won't remember what you looked like all that much if you fall in the bellcurve of looking relatively average or normal, which most people do.

But a photo lasts. And that becomes the documentation of your life. What, exactly, did you look like when you were eighteen? Seven? Twenty-three? This day last year? You can answer in generalities, but if you really want to get the picture (literally or figuratively), you're going to have to "get the picture." You're going to have to look at a photo. And, consider, that example is of figuring out what you, yourself, looked like when you were younger. You knew what you looked like then and you still need to look at a picture to get an "accurate" read. (Or, maybe you don't, but that's only because you've seen enough pictures from the era in question already and you've, essentially, already looked and commited the photo to memory.) A person who didn't know you at all has nothing to go on but pictures.

Everything I've talked about here I've addressed in the original Thymenage essays to a certain degree. Although I was talking about different things, the concept is the same: If a piece of information—regardless of it's accuracy—is what everyone remembers and it is agreed on to be the truth and there's no way to prove otherwise, it will be remembered as fact, whether it is or isn't. So, if you look good in you pictures, you will have been a good-looking person, for the most part.

If you show someone your baby pictures and you happen to look gorgeous in them becuase they were from great angles or something, then you were a beautiful baby. Even if you really weren't.

Long story short? Even with the obvious counter-arguments that I haven't presented, you can definitely make a strong case that it's better to look good in your pictures than it is to look good in real life.

posted by Steve @ 2:23 PM