You Actually Are Photogenic

Your mom probably didn’t take as many pictures of you as mine did of me, growing up. Just generally speaking, most people I talk to didn’t have the same camera-always-present childhood. Your parents pulled out the camera occasionally, for birthdays and holidays (unless they forgot) and they definitely didn’t take at least one photo of you a day, like I’ve been doing for the last couple of years with my kids. Of course not. Film was expensive. Parents typically took one or two photos to document an event or occasion, hoped for the best, and then put the camera away until the next event, and eventually they would have taken enough photos to use up the roll of film, and then maybe would take it to get developed and printed.

So many people I talk to say that they don’t like having their picture taken. My theory is that some of that is from the forced studio photos that many of us were subjected to as kids (I talked more about that here). My other theory has to do with the excuse I hear a lot: “I’m just not photogenic.”

And I believe why you think you aren’t photogenic is tied to how many photos your parents took of you as kids, how much film was used in your house as you grew up, and how many photos your friends took of you before the age of digital photography.

I imagine that if Mom had stopped at one or two photos of me, a couple of times per year, I probably would think I wasn’t photogenic either. The odds of taking a great photo every time are pretty low. The odds of taking a great photo when you’re not well practiced at taking photos is even lower. (Higher? I don’t get the terminology around odds. Just know the odds are against you.)

So if all you have are photos of you with your eyes closed, or a “huh” look on your face because someone yelled your name and then snapped your photo before you had a chance to respond, then yeah. Those photos would make it seem like you were not photogenic.

But that’s not an indication that you are or aren’t photogenic. That’s an indication that your parents didn’t take one million photos of you. That they didn’t practice, likely because it was cost prohibitive, but maybe because they just weren’t interested. But mostly it’s an indication of the film age.

The beauty of digital photography is that you’re not counting each frame, hoping you’ll have enough film for the whole birthday party. You can take the photos you want to take, as many as you want to take. You can look as you go, and take as many as needed while your kid blinks, coughs, and sneezes their way through a special occasion.

Imagine if I had stopped at the first one or two, as she unwrapped this gift on her birthday.

I rarely only take one photo of anything. Even if I’m taking a photo of a leaf on a sidewalk, I’ll take two to make sure I like the angle, that my lines are straight, that the light is coming from the best place. That’s just what I do and how I practice as a photographer. I do the same thing with family, maternity, and newborn photos I take for clients here in Richmond. You are much prettier than a leaf on a sidewalk.

So when I come into your home, I’m taking way more photos than I’m going to put in your gallery. I’m going to take out all the ones that your mom would have left in (because that’s the only one she had). I’m going to delete the ones with sneezes, yawns (unless they’re newborn yawns, in which case, you’ll get all of those), blinks, unintentional side eyes, and the ever-beautiful half-closed eyes. You’ll never see those, so you’ll never know that for the briefest of moments, you weren’t photogenic.

And really, that’s the real confidence booster. Seeing photos of yourself taken from the right angle (never from below), with a real, non-derpy expression, helps you know that you actually look “normal” in real life, and helps you realize that you can be documented looking good in photos, too.