Photogenial
Aug. 11th, 2016 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueI recently looked at a bunch of old photos of myself, seeking a specific old photo to illustrate an autobiographical essay, and I've been lamenting how much less photogenic I seem to be these days compared to ten years ago. What changed? I say to myself, partly because I'm growing my hair out therefore do look a bit stupid at the moment - but not sufficiently stupid to explain this dramatic difference.
But of course something major did change. Photos of me from 10, 15 years ago were overwhelmingly taken on 35mm film cameras with portrait lenses. Most of the snapshots of present-day me use cellphone cameras, which by default have the gain turned way up to keep everything bright and in-focus, plus wide-angle lenses that let you take a tremendously slimming picture of yourself from an arm's length away. Since I'm already pale and slender, I wind up looking like a rat-faced cadaver.
This among other things explains why I've never gotten into the selfie game.
But of course something major did change. Photos of me from 10, 15 years ago were overwhelmingly taken on 35mm film cameras with portrait lenses. Most of the snapshots of present-day me use cellphone cameras, which by default have the gain turned way up to keep everything bright and in-focus, plus wide-angle lenses that let you take a tremendously slimming picture of yourself from an arm's length away. Since I'm already pale and slender, I wind up looking like a rat-faced cadaver.
This among other things explains why I've never gotten into the selfie game.
