If you want to know how to be more photogenic, you have to practice. Practice in front of a mirror or even in front of a camera to determine your best angles, poses and smiles. Try different poses and practice angling your body in familiar positions that you can re-create in front of a camera.
However getting to the question, it is technically very possible for a person to have an attractive face but not be photogenic. The problem is that the camera captures the face in 2D as opposed to our 3D vision. As the face appears to be flat, details like chin and nose are flattened on the face.
Hold two hand mirrors in front of you with their edges touching and a right angle between them like the two covers of a book when you're reading. With a little adjustment you can get a complete reflection of your face as others see it. Wink with your right eye. The person in the mirror winks his or her right eye.
Sharp cheekbones, a square jaw, and other angular facial features make for attractive subjects in photography because they better capture the available light. Whereas, light reflected from rounder faces scatters in all directions.
A camera has only "one eye", so photography flattens images in a way that mirrors do not. Also, depending on the focal length and distance from the subject, the lens can create unflattering geometric distortions.
This is because the reflection you see every day in the mirror is the one you perceive to be original and hence a better-looking version of yourself. So, when you look at a photo of yourself, your face seems to be the wrong way as it is reversed than how you are used to seeing it.
There are many elements in photography that come together to make an image be considered “good”. Elements like lighting, the rule of thirds, lines, shapes, texture, patterns, and color all work well together to add interest and a great deal of composition in photographs.
You aren't naturally comfortable in front of the camera.
They take more pictures, they practice more, they are prepared. You are already convinced that you are not photogenic so you aren't confident about being in a picture and you are not comfortable.
“Certain facial structures and features work better with the light and will therefore naturally photograph better like higher and more defined cheekbones. That's why certain celebrities like Beyoncé and Bella Hadid are considered to be really photogenic.
A naturally photogenic person is someone who looks good on camera from most angles, with most expressions – even if they're not good-looking in real life. The reason you think some of your friends are photogenic is probably because they've spent time figuring out their good angles so they always look great in pictures.
The answer is simple: Mirrors. There's a difference between your image in the mirror and in photos. The image you see in the mirror is reversed compared to the image that others see face-to-face with you.
But the image you see in the mirror is NOT what everyone else sees. The reflection you see in the mirror each morning is a REVERSED IMAGE of how you appear to the world, and to the camera.
One major factor is that photos generally show us the reverse of what we see in the mirror. When you take a photo of yourself using some (but not all) apps or the front-facing camera on an iPhone, the resulting image captures your face as others see it. The same is true for non-phone cameras.
Loss aversion causes people to focus more on negative aspects of their personal appearance. A person's intimate familiarity with their own appearance makes easier for them to focus on their flaws. Learning to accept others' positive opinions about their looks can help people see themselves more accurately.
In a series of studies, Epley and Whitchurch showed that we see ourselves as better looking than we actually are. The researchers took pictures of study participants and, using a computerized procedure, produced more attractive and less attractive versions of those pictures.
The results showed that participants generally rated themselves as being more attractive in photographs than in mirrors. This may be because when we look in a mirror, our image is reversed left to right, which can make us look different than we expect.