There are several reasons you might dislike looking at photographs of yourself. For starters, we perceive ourselves from one perspective and everyone else from another. Another reason that's more common than you might think is the mere exposure effect, a psychological phenomenon in which familiarity breeds attraction.
Because of how close your face is to the camera's lens, certain of your features may appear exaggerated. Photos can only capture a two-dimensional image of our true self. If your face is naturally round and soft, the flattening effect of photographs may confuse people about who you really are.
A mirror flips the image
So when we see a photograph of ourselves, which is not flipped "imperfections you've gotten used to over time are now new and surprising". A commenter said that because we are far more used to looking in the mirror, than looking at photos of ourselves, the latter will always seem odd.
A photograph can reveal a different side of your character than what you see when you look at yourself in the mirror. Unless they have had thousands of images taken of themselves and don't own any mirrors, most people are more accustomed to seeing themselves in mirrors than in photographs.
The camera lens also plays a part.
But the problem might not be your angles, it could be lens distortion. Because of the proximity of your face to the camera, the lens can distort certain features, making them look larger than they are in real life. Pictures also only provide a 2-D version of ourselves.
When being asked that can someone be very beautiful in person, but not very photogenic, most people would give the “YES” answer. There are some people around us look beautiful but not photogenic. What makes thing even more shocking is the opposite that some photogenic people do not surprise you in real life.
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.
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.
You probably aren't really ugly. Instead, camera distortion and perspective are to blame for your unflattering portrait. Let's face it: if you're not a rare photogenic beauty or if you don't have good photographers as friends, you most likely look terrible in photos.
People can be unhappy with their overall appearance, or a specific feature (e.g. nose). It is difficult to estimate how many people don't like how they look. Rates of poor body image fluctuate between 10 to 69% (6). However, younger people are particularly prone to feeling insecure about their appearance (7).
Selfies sometimes look strange to their subjects because of how we see ourselves in the mirror, how we perceive our own attractiveness, and the technical details of how we take them on camera phones. Whether or not a selfie is reversed after being shot is a major factor.
All in all, try looking at images of yourself through a lens of curiosity rather than a filter of negativity. If you think that you look particularly bad in a photo, consider that you might just be feeling bad in the moment. Or, possibly, your vision — or even your relationship with the tagger — is off.
A new study shows that 20% of people see you as more attractive than you do.
Our brains are simply tricking us into thinking we look better than we really do! However, don't be overly surprised and let this fool you into thinking you're really an unattractive person; the mirror isn't changing you that much to where you look like a different person entirely.
However, when we see a photo, we look at a 2D representation of ourselves, which is not reversed and can look different from what we see in the mirror and we are not used to the reversed face in the photo. We don't have a symmetrical face that shows no differences when it is reversed.
It is important to understand that pictures are a 2-D version of real life. This simply means that photos tend to flatten your features or distort them due to certain angles. Also, since photos store everything, any awkward movement which goes unnoticed in real life is captured for everyone to see.
You typically are not lit (or posed) properly.
There is so much more than just knowing how to work a camera to produce a good photo. Lighting (and posing for that matter) is a huge factor.
Also, depending on the camera angle and how close the lens is to you, cameras can distort your features so – for instance – your nose or arm looks bigger than it really is. Pictures can also catch you in action, capturing a split-second ugly expression that no one would have ever noticed in person.
Camera sensors absorb light through complex lenses that process the world very differently from the human eye. That results in all sorts of weird idiosyncrasies.
When cameras take photos, they separate the foreground, middle ground, and background very differently than two human eyes do. This exaggerates the depth difference between parts of your face, making them look disproportionate.
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.