I wanna be clear about something right off the bat here – we’re not here to mock anybody for their looks or their bodies or any beauty methods they feel like using. It’s fine. We’re fine. You’re *all fine.*
That said, a huge part of social media seems to be subtly convincing ourselves that we’re *not* fine, largely by comparing our appearances to that of others. Little do many of us know how often those *others* don’t even look like themselves.
Between makeup methods, lighting techniques, photography angles, differing lenses, and of course ever more accessible photo filters and digital touch ups, we’ve got a veritable arsenal of ways to play around with our looks on the screen, or to have them played around with, and it’s hard to know what to do with that sometimes.
Here’s a few things that arsenal can do.
14. Pinch it way in
And it’s not like she’s not skinny in the second picture!
13. Shift definition
How much is us and how much is for an audience?
12. Force a perspective
Everybody’s a shape shifter if ya wanna be!
11. Smooth things over
Ya’ll it is a-ok to have skin.
10. Create a costume
And the irony is that neither of these would look like the person you’d see face to face.
That’s just how cameras do.
9. Color things up
I am not in fact surprised to learn that this person is not naturally rainbowed.
8. Change your reflection
To be honest, it’s hard to tell what exactly is going on here.
Combining lenses with mirrors always makes for strangeness.
7. Tune up a face
This dang near looks like a face swap.
6. Create a shift
Angles, always angles.
5. Brighten things up
The comparison might be more helpful if the left pic had more than eight pixels.
4. Filter things out
Some people just like different looks for different contexts, yo.
3. Turn some heads
Them wings tho.
2. Soften things up
Back in the day cinematographers would literally smear vaseline on a lens to soften up feminine faces, this is absolutely nothing new.
1. Draw some lines
Differing lighting conditions make a lot of change too.
The point is, a single picture isn’t who we are. It’s just one particular collection of pixels with a part of us in there somewhere. Try not to get too hung up on it.
What’s the best or worst picture you’ve ever taken?
Tell us in the comments.