I'm wondering...

[Greyswan]

How many of you hate having your photo taken, as photographers?

I HATE being photographed, never had a good one take of me when younger, even by professional photogs, and I simply hate how I look in photos. I morph into a person who looks somehow Mongolian - and no disrespect is meant to them, beautiful people, it's just that I literally look like that ethnicity, without the great bone structure! So like a pancake face.

My whole working life has been based around dodging those 'team photos' so beloved of North American workplaces, lol, and assiduously making it my life's goal to slink away to avoid being shot anywhere, any time, even with friends. My 75 year old mother looked like a runway model in her photos, but me? Argh! Not even in my twenties. I hasten to say I was never drop-dead gorgeous, but reasonably attractive, so not a case of hating the way I look. But photos? No. And don't think I haven't tried, with pros and amateurs alike. I just end up looking awful. Yet I can do a good job on other people, took many corporate photos for my companies.

Anyone else feel the same way? I find it hilarious that as a pro photog I wouldn't be caught dead in front of a camera.

 

[ShipleyNW]

I'm a little camera shy myself. Not too many pictures of me out there.

 

[joayne]

Despised having my photo taken as a very small child and now as a small adult.. No Photos Please!

 

[paddler4]

To paraphrase badly something I read many years ago:

• You spend your first 20 years worrying about how people think you look
• You spend your second 20 years trying hard not to worry about how people think you look
• You spend your third 20 years trying to come to grips with the fact that no one is thinking about how you look.

 

[Greyswan]

Exactly this! But in the old days, we didn't have the ridiculous editing we have today. Pursuant to that, I stopped caring many decades ago! But still don't like being in front of the lens.

 

[Nick5]

Either side of the lens is fine with me.