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selfies

Mental Health

Woman discovers trick to instantly feel better about how you look in photos: 'ZOOM OUT I beg'

"I promise you’ll look back at those photos ... and see the bigger picture."

Canva Photos

25-year-old woman urges people to stop zooming in on photos.

Millennials in the early 2000s were really enjoying the perks of digital photos and cameras, which were relatively new at the time. I know, it's hard to imagine. We had small, physical cameras with memory cards that we'd carry around with us on a night out, even just to the bar. We would take photos all night—hundreds and hundreds of them. They were blurry, poorly lit, and candid. People were always making awkward faces in the background or being shown at unflattering angles.

We didn't care. We posted every single one of them to a Facebook album, tagged our friends, and let them live there permanently. Can you imagine?!

Things work a little differently now. Our online lives are a lot more curated. We don't post every photo we take, and in fact, all of us intuitively utilize a careful vetting process when we take group pictures or selfies. We snap the pic, or a few, and immediately go to look how it turned out. If it doesn't meet the standards of how we want ourselves to look in a public facing photo, it doesn't get posted. Worse, it might be deleted on the spot, the memory of that moment vanishing forever.

 body image, selfies, photography, photos, body positivity, self esteem, self worth, psychology, technology Take me back to when we hardly cared what we looked like in selfies.  Giphy  

25-year-old Emma-Kirsty Fraser has a theory on why we seem to be so much more selective, even flat out disgusted, with pictures of ourselves these days: It's the damn zoom.

In a recent Instagram reel, Fraser posted a photo of herself as the camera zoomed in the parts of her body she tends to over-examine in photos: Her arms, chin, midsection, and legs.

"Image the brainwashing required to get us to see this," she says as the camera bounces around to all the most self-critiqued parts of her body. "Instead of this!"

The camera then cuts to the full photo, of Fraser laughing and chatting with friends. It's a fun and beautiful moment, full of life. It captures a moment in time, friendship, love, and joy. No one in their right mind would see the photo and have any thoughts whatsoever about the shape of her chin or the size of her arms. But we've all been conditioned to hyper-analyze every pixel when it comes to our own body and how we think we come across in photos.

"ZOOM OUT I beg ... I think it’s quite terrifying when you realise how much brainwashing it took to get you to zoom in and criticise yourself in so much detail? Like if you showed 8 year old Emma a photo of herself there’s no way she would zoom in," Fraser captioned the post.

"There is so much more to life than the way your body looks and I promise you’ll look back at those photos (because you’re not going to delete them anymore!!!) and see the bigger picture, not your skin/body/blemishes."

Believe it or not, "pinch zooming" in on photos is a relatively new phenomenon that cropped up within the last 20 years.

Most experts credit (or blame, depending on your point of view) the iPhone with innovating and popularizing the feature around 2007. In a few years, it was available on Android phones as well. It didn't take long from there for us to ditch our Nikon Coolpix cameras and start exclusively taking photographs on our phones, quickly learning that we could spot and delete our double-chin moments before anyone saw them.

(Smartphones with cameras officially overtook digital cameras around 2007 but didn't become completely ubiquitous until about 2012-2013.)

The world, and our body image, was never the same.

 body image, selfies, photography, photos, body positivity, self esteem, self worth, psychology, technology Resist the urge to zoom in on your most sensitive features.  Photo by Antoine Beauvillain on Unsplash  

Fraser's post went viral, racking up 30,000 Likes on Instagram and over three million views.

Commenters were so grateful for the message they so desperately needed to hear:

"the fact i saw this picture and ONLY thought about how it was such a beautiful candid & captured your vibe perfectly"

"At first ... I saw nothing wrong with her. But if this was a photo of ME, tell why would I suddenly see all the flaws?"

"At first, I thought we were talking about the tattoos, the accessories, etc. because I saw nothing wrong with her. But if this was a photo of ME, tell why would I suddenly see all the flaws?"

"I'm 41, I still really REALLY struggle with this, I zoom in on every photo and criticise every flaw and a "bad" photo can bring down my body image for days. But I've started refusing to delete and coming back to photos after a day or so and slowly I'm learning to realise they often aren't as "bad" as my initial reaction would suggest."

"I struggled to see what you were talking about but then I imagined if it was me and I could see what might be perceived as issues. Kinda sad."

Fraser's words really struck a nerve, and she managed to capture a feeling and phenomenon that we all intuitively understand but rarely talk about.

When we look at photos of others, we see the big picture. We see their smile and the emotion of the photo, we take in the moment. We don't nitpick. So why do we do it to ourselves?

Body image and pressure to look "perfect" is about as bad, or worse, than its ever been—in part because the online world is so heavily curated. Real people are quieter and harder to find on social media, and instead we see more and more perfect-looking influencers and celebrities. Photos are easy to edit, touch up, or apply filters to. The real, blurry, awkward photos of the early 2000s are gone and probably never coming back.

But we can fight back in one very simple way. Just zoom out. Don't inspect your belly, your smile, or whatever your perceived flaws are. Enjoy the picture for what it is, a snapshot of a moment in time. Try to view it like a stranger would. And, for the love of God, don't be so quick to delete the memories that you can't get back.

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body image
Culture

This essential photography lesson shows how selfies distort what we really look like

Don't be fooled!

Evey Winters/Facebook, Vox/YouTube

What you look like in a selfie camera isn't really what you look like in real life.

We've all done it: You snap a selfie, look at it, say, "OMG is my nose swollen?" then try again from a different angle. "Wait, now my forehead looks weird. And what's up with my chin?" You keep trying various angles and distances, trying to get a picture that looks like how you remember yourself looking. Whether you finally land on one or not, you walk away from the experience wondering which photo actually looks like the "real" you.

I do this, even as a 40-something-year-old who is quite comfortable with the face I see in the mirror. So, it makes me cringe imagining a tween or teen, who likely take a lot more selfies than I do, questioning their facial features based on those snapshots. When I'm wondering why my facial features look weird in selfies it's because I know my face well enough to know that's not what it looks like. However, when a young person whose face is changing rapidly sees their facial features distorted in a photo, they may come to all kinds of wrong conclusions about what they actually look like.

Not that it should matter, of course. But we're talking about people living in a society obsessed with personal appearance. It's going to matter to a lot of people, and if they get the wrong impression of their face, some people will go to all sorts of lengths to change it. That's why understanding a bit about how focal lengths on cameras can impact what we see in photographs is vital.

Writer Evey Winters shared some of that education in a post on Facebook. She writes about this topic through a trans and dysmorphia lens, but it applies to everyone.

Winters points out that if someone is thinking of doing surgery to change their bodies, they should seek sources outside of themselves and a cellphone camera.

"I have dysmorphia and recognize that in myself," she wrote, "but even if I didn’t, there’s not a selfie I’ve ever taken that would accurately help me make choices about my face. Mirrors are slightly better only for their minimal distortions."

"If you want the best chance at getting good feedback pre-op about what you might want to change," she added, "I’d recommend a skilled photographer take a series of photos of you at different focal lengths and even then none of these will be entirely accurate as none of these employ humans binocular vision and filtering."

Winters shared a collage of photos of the same girl's face at different focal lengths to show the significant difference it makes. "Notice how in different photos this child’s eyes may appear to be slightly hooded," she wrote. "The nose appears enlarged disproportionately. Hairline seems to shift with every snap. So does jaw shape, face shape, and even the width and size of the ears."

The difference between each of these photos is significant, but the difference between the first and the last is stunning. Cellphone selfie cameras usually have an even smaller focal length than the 40 mm shown here (Winters points out that the iPhone 13 Pro Max selfie camera has the equivalent of a 23 mm focal length), so they distort facial features even more. It also depends on how far away from the camera you are—the closer you are, the more distortion you'll see. Lighting matters, too, but even the best lighting can't cancel out what the focal length is doing.

Vox shared a video specifically about the "big nose" phenomenon with selfies, showing how drastic the distortion can be.

As a parent of two teens and a young adult, I find these photos to be fantastic tools for teaching my kids not to put too much stock in what they see in a selfie. Far too many people are increasingly seeking out plastic surgery to change a nose or a forehead or a jawline that doesn't even really exist. Imagine looking in a funhouse mirror and thinking you need to do something to change how you look. Selfie cameras are basically mini funhouse mirrors. Smartphones and apps are getting better at making filters that adjust for those distortions, but none of us should be relying on selfies of any kind to see what we really look like, much less taking major measures to alter our appearance based on what we see in them.

Even if you have some physical feature you simply can't accept and want to change, make sure you get a skilled photographer to give you the most accurate picture of what it actually looks like. As Winters concluded at the end of her post: "Make sure you’re not reshaping your body for a you that only exists in selfie cams."

Thank you for the reminder, Ms. Winters.


This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Parenting

Parents share hilariously relatable photos before and after they had kids.

You'll truly never be the same again.

Photo by Allen Taylor on Unsplash

The daily lives of parents, #Tuesday.

When dad and blogger Mike Julianelle compared a photo of himself to a photo from 10 years ago, he noticed a big difference.

Yes, he looked a little older — after all, a decade had gone by. But there was something else: a deep, deep look of utter exhaustion.

Life has a way of asking a lot of us. How we cope and manage the moments at work, our personal goals, the friendships, and our loved ones.

All these daily routines navigated that bring the best and ask the most. But what was that other thing which had changed over those 10 years?


Julianelle had two kids.

You've probably seen all sorts of before and after concepts on your social media feeds. If you missed this one, you'll see why they all became a "thing."

When he posted the side-by-side comparison on Instagram, it was an instant hit. So he invited other parents to share their own "before and afters."

The results were hilarious and oddly inspiring. They also revealed a bunch of important truths about what happens to you when you become a parent.

Like...

After kids, a blanket becomes your favorite outfit.

You are frequently at risk of getting accidentally walloped in the nose.

Your glasses become a favorite toy.

So does your entire face, actually.

When your baby decides to take a nap, thou shalt not move.

Alcohol can go from an indulgence to a necessity.

Did we mention you'll be tired? Like really, really tired?

Most days, doing your best is all you can really do.

But, at the end of those days, it'll all be worth it (at least, most of the time).

The project went viral, with Julianelle receiving hundreds of submissions from other parents via Instagram.

While not everyone has been brave enough to publicly share their no-sleep, just-got-barfed-on selfies with him, Julianelle says the response has been hugely positive.

"I hope people take away a few laughs and a little solidarity," he writes in an email. "Parenting is awesome but it also sucks and there shouldn't be any shame in admitting that."

And as the photos show, he's absolutely right. Parenting is hard but rewarding work, at its best. It's also exhausting, frustrating, frightening, and anxiety-inducing.

Julianelle sums it up perfectly in an interview with Huffington Post: "Kids are the worst best thing that's ever happened to us. If we don’t laugh about the havoc they wreak we'd have to cry instead."

You can see more hilarious before and afters over on the Got Toddlered Instagram account.


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Pop Culture

Miranda Lambert calling out selfie taking fans, sparks debate about concert etiquette.

Is it a form of disrespect?

en.wikipedia.org

Was she in the right?

Country singer Miranda Lambert recently paused mid-song during a show in Las Vegas to confront fans who were taking a selfie during the performance, and no one can seem to agree whether or not she was right to do so.

In a video taken at the Sunday night concert, Lambert is seen beginning her ballad “Tin Man” when she suddenly says, "I'm gonna stop right here for a second, I'm sorry. These girls are worried about their selfie and not listening to the song,” referencing a group of friends somewhere in the front section.

“I don’t like it, at all,” she continues, “We’re here to hear some country music tonight…I’m singing some country damn music,” before motioning for them to put their phones away.

The clip quickly went viral, sparking a heated debate about who was in the wrong. Over on TikTok, most commenters thought Lambert was out of line in her chastising and agreed that the harshness did more to ruin the moment than the girls trying to take a photo.

 
 @redneckinvegas Miranda said its My Show.. #selfie #narcissist #Miranda #country #music #show #iPhone #tinman #sing #viral #share #wwyd #comment #vegas @Miranda Lambert #startover #scream #concert #wtf #lol #haha #me #like #love #vegasshow #subscribe #pissmeoff #girls #why #beautiful #sexy ♬ original sound - redneckinvegas 
 
 

“Imagine it was their favorite song and they were taking a video and they were excited,” one person wrote.

“They were just making memories,” wrote another.

Another pointed out that even if Lambert were in the right, she could have handled the situation differently, suggesting that “she could have finished her song and just said some blanket statement like ‘let’s try to be in the moment and stay off our phones.’”

One even noted that for folks who “paid upward of $700 to sit up front…they SHOULD be able to take photos.”

It even became a point of focus on “The View,” wherein Whoopi Goldberg defended Lambert against the other hosts, saying that for those willing to pay high prices for front row seats to a show, they should equally be willing to “give respect” by watching someone “do their thing.”

Eventually, one of the women called out by Lambert, Adela Calin, decided to speak up. She assured NBC News that posing for a photo that night took “30 seconds at most” and came from innocent intentions—they had even attempted to capture the image before the show started but couldn’t find proper lighting. They had finally asked a woman behind them to snap a photo when Lambert spotted them.

"We just couldn’t get one good picture," Calin told NBC. "We were so excited because I think we had the best seats in the whole theater."

The entire situation reflects a larger exhaustion many people are having with the tech that is now the cornerstone of every aspect of our lives. According to a survey published by Fast Company, an overwhelming number of Americans (including those from Gen Z) long for a pre-plugged-in world, when life didn’t revolve around a 24-hour news cycle, constant content and a barrage of screens. It seems like many would prefer to return to simply being at a concert and trusting that the memories will be made through the feelings felt in the moment, rather than posting something online and then never thinking about it again.

There’s also the recent uptick of concertgoers literally abusing performers by throwing their phones and other objects at them, as with Bebe Rexha and Harry Styles. This is, needless to say, dehumanizing and dangerous, and most likely something that influenced Lambert’s reaction. Even Calin acknowledged this.

 

However, Calin added that while she might understand Lambert’s concern, her determination to make her group look “young, immature and vain” was unfair.

“It felt like I was back at school with the teacher scolding me for doing something wrong and telling me to sit down back in my place,” Calin said. “We were just grown women in our 30s to 60s trying to take a picture.”

There isn’t a clear-cut solution to this modern-day dilemma. Selfie-taking is a deeply embedded part of our contemporary culture and like any social trend, there are pros and cons to that. Probably the only thing that we can count on not changing is the value of keeping to kindness while discussing the topic.

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