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“Smile!” – and we are immediately shackled by tension. And when we see a picture, we are often disappointed: we don’t like ourselves, we don’t recognize ourselves, although others find the photo successful. It’s time to figure out why this is happening.
It is hard to imagine modern life without photographs. Travels, holidays, long-awaited meetings and important events take place under camera flashes, children grow up under their lenses. Shooting technologies are improving: now, for example, you don’t have to think about exposure. There were photo remedies against red eyes and trembling hands. And most importantly, you can immediately see the result on a small screen and, if you don’t like it, erase it.
But all this does not help us enjoy our image. Moreover, knowing in advance that the pictures will disappoint, many generally refuse to be photographed under various pretexts.
“We like only seven or nine of our photographs in our entire lives, and two or three of them are children’s,” says psychologist Veronika Nurkova, author of a unique study of the photography phenomenon. “In most of the pictures, we seem to ourselves ugly, unnatural, not like we really are.” Why do we feel uncomfortable during the shooting and later, even if those around us assure us that we came out perfectly in the photo?
Primal Fear
“How I don’t like all this – to take a pose, to smile,” admits 33-year-old Larisa. “I don’t like the fuss around the shoot.” 42-year-old Dmitry is also not a fan of being photographed: “I can’t keep an emotion on my face for more than thirty seconds – it seems to me that I’m naked in front of the camera.”
Even star actors are often afraid of the camera lens. “It is difficult for many to be organic in front of the camera,” photographer and designer Sergey Vetrov sighs. “They involuntarily turn to stone, tighten their lips and are sometimes afraid of the camera just like a drill.” Increased nervousness, stiffness that cannot be overcome, whims and conflicting demands …
150 years after the advent of photography, despite its popularity and accessibility, professionals still face this syndrome, when ease is suddenly replaced by tension in front of the lens.
Even if the camera is in the hands of an amateur, as soon as he makes a couple of innocent remarks like “Step back a step, head a little to the left, smile more cheerfully!”, as the “models” run away … And there are real stubborn ones. Alexander, 46, says he only has two photos of his sister: “Once in the frame, she covers her face or turns away.”
One of the explanations for the hostile attitude towards shooting is an unaccountable, primal fear. The anthropologist and philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl described in his book Supernatural in Primitive Thinking the horror of the savages before the photographing procedure: they were convinced that the photographic image takes away part of their vitality.
“Until now, many of us retain a mystical view of the photo as part of our personality,” explains Veronika Nurkova. “The press is full of offers of magical influence through photography: love spells, removal of spoilage, treatment for alcoholism – all this is built on the belief that by influencing the picture, you can also influence the person who is depicted in it.”
Posing for posterity
Valery is 57 years old and still lives alone. But he carefully keeps photos that were taken in different years as if to illustrate his biography. Anna is 65 years old – she recently arranged old pictures into two albums so that it would be easier for her grandchildren to see what their grandmother looked like when she was 20 years old and how people dressed at that time. French psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron believes that in this way we strive to achieve immortality (and sometimes cherish this fantasy for years), but invariably fall into a trap.
In the 60s, most people did not have photos from the 20s and 30s and they did not know that transparencies and pictures deteriorate over time. But we still don’t know if modern flash drives or CDs are more reliable in this regard.
And even if we save our photos (digitize, archive in a computer), will descendants treasure them? And will we watch them ourselves? And how objective will our sample be: each of us has probably seen a picture of someone’s grumpy grandmother, who smiles sweetly from the frame of a carefully kept family portrait?
Erotica and aggression
“The process of photographing is unconsciously associated with something aggressive,” says psychoanalyst Mikhail Romashkevich. Indeed, we are being carefully examined, and then a click that looks like a shot is an unpleasant feeling!
“There is also an element of sexual aggression in this, which can awaken sexual fantasies,” agrees the psychotherapist, director of the Paris School of Gestalt Gonzag Masquelier. “Some have an unconscious idea of the photographer as a person who secretly spying on erotic scenes.”
As well as during photography, in the office of a psychoanalyst, it is difficult for us to completely lose control of ourselves.
The therapist recalls the connotations of the verb “to remove” and the similarities between a retractable lens and a phallus. “To take a picture means to some extent to take possession of a person, to penetrate into his intimate world,” continues Mikhail Romashkevich. “By grimacing in front of the camera or covering our face with our hands, we protect our chastity.” Perhaps that is why in many countries there is a rule: before photographing someone, ask permission.
Why is it so hard to stay natural?
Where do you do better – staged or spontaneous shots? “I don’t like to be photographed by surprise: my mouth is crooked, my hair is lying wrong,” says 40-year-old Inna. “I like staged photography, because only impeccably beautiful people look good on reportage shots.” “I succeed when I don’t pose,” says Dmitry. “It’s even better if someone you don’t know is taking pictures. I don’t know him, so I don’t fit in with him. With friends, certain behaviors get in the way.”
But this is rather an exception – usually for shooting, we are more easily surrendered to the hands of loved ones. 35-year-old Lera generally trusts the camera only to her lover: “He knows my face well, knows how to catch the right moment and choose a pose in which I look beautiful. Also, he shoots me so much that I can always choose a picture that I like myself in.”
What tricks do photographers go to to help us look natural: telling jokes, shooting in motion, pretending not to photograph, or, conversely, clicking the camera for nothing, without a film, giving us time to get used to. In the end, the success of the photo session depends on the charm of the photographer and his ability to create an atmosphere of trust.
“I try to capture the moment when a person forgets about himself,” says photographer Isabelle Levy. “It’s very important that he stop controlling how he looks.” The same thing happens when we get an appointment with a psychoanalyst: we should not close ourselves and suppress our feelings. But, just as during photography, in the office of a psychoanalyst, it is difficult for us to completely lose control of ourselves. And there are reasons for that!
Photography and our self-image
When we are relaxed, behaving naturally, photography can “highlight” some aspects of our personality, reflect unconscious feelings. Isn’t that what we’re afraid of? “We put a lot of effort not to see in ourselves what we don’t like, what we don’t want to accept in ourselves,” Mikhail Romashkevich explains. “And thanks to the mechanisms of psychological defense, we really cease to be aware of that part of ourselves that is unacceptable to us. And the photo – a view from the outside – shows it. And we have to do something about it.
“Modern photography is a sociocultural tool that forms and makes conscious our idea of ourselves,” says Veronika Nurkova. “But this process is uncomfortable, because when we see ourselves in the photo, we are often forced to change ourselves in some way. So not liking yourself in a photo is, in a sense, natural for a person.
This also happens because in the photographs we appear in an unusual angle for our eyes: we see our back, profile or gaze not looking at the lens, while in the mirror we see ourselves only in front. In addition, unlike video shooting, the camera captures the facial expression and posture at a particular moment in a certain situation.
We tend to project our feelings, doubts, insecurities onto our image – this helps to reduce anxiety.
“Since the Renaissance, when mirrors appeared in everyday life, we have become accustomed to identifying our personality with our external appearance,” says Sergey Vetrov. We think we are who we see ourselves. When we look in amazement at a photograph of a complete stranger (he has a mole on the wrong side and a larger left eye), it is stunning.
American psychologists Theodore Mita, Marshal Dermer and Geoffrey Knight conducted a curious experiment. They took a photo of university students and asked them to choose the best shot from two – a regular photo and its mirror image. All the girls chose the second option, familiar to their eyes. When both photos were shown to close friends, they called the “real” picture familiar to them the best.
So whether we’re posing or not noticing the camera, whether a friend or a stranger snaps us, the picture almost never matches our self-image.
Formal “three by four”
The most unfortunate photographs are on documents, everyone will agree with this. Why are we so… scary in formal pictures – whether for a pass or for a passport?
“Official photography began as a prison photograph,” explains psychologist Veronika Nurkova. – A certain angle, open eyes and ears – these requirements for the images of criminals were formulated in Europe in the late 60s of the XIX century. Criminals, according to contemporaries, often grimaced, not wanting to be photographed in the form that would allow them to be found and identified. Traces of this attitude have survived to this day, and during the shooting we shrink, make grimaces, as if we want to deceive the one who is looking at us. As a result, in a formal photograph, we are always tense, frightened, dissatisfied and really do not look like ourselves.
To look more open on documents, try to smile inwardly and imagine on the other side of the lens … a very pleasant person for you. And the expression of the eyes will change – you will come closer to yourself.
We feel different
“The belief that something hidden from others (and from ourselves) is imprinted in the frame, our soul is manifested, is generated by superstitions that were born simultaneously with the invention of photography,” says Veronika Nurkova. – From that moment, the question arose before the person: what am I really? Thanks to photography, we gradually learn not only to feel ourselves from the inside, but also to see from the outside. When this external view is not integrated, we have a conflict with photography: we seem different to ourselves and do not like ourselves.”
“If you never like yourself in a photo, you should think about how you generally evaluate yourself,” says Mikhail Romashkevich. – In fact, we tend to project our feelings, doubts, insecurities onto our image – this helps to reduce anxiety. For example, comments such as “I’m getting fat” or “I’m getting old” can hide a fear of relationships or a fear of being alone. Sometimes a detail can evoke memories that we are trying to repress: we, for example, can notice that our eyes are similar to the eyes of our father when he was drunk … “
Comparing herself to her relatives, Tatyana, 38, says with regret that she looks worse than her mother at her age. “She always seemed to me a beauty, like Grace Kelly, and I turn out to be nondescript -“ no ”!” Psychoanalysts believe that the image of the mother has a huge influence on us: it was with him that we associated ourselves in infancy until we saw ourselves in the mirror and did not know how we really look.
Whatever the character or level of self-esteem, we never see ourselves the way we feel… “To love your photography means to improve your attitude towards yourself,” sums up Veronika Nurkova. “And try to accept yourself differently.” “A smile and a feeling of happiness is what helps us to “succeed” in the picture,” adds photographer Kirill Samursky. – A smile addressed primarily to himself.
What baby pictures tell
Pictures that we did not like in childhood or adolescence, later we look at them with pleasure, show them to friends. Why?
“Our old photos become dear to us over the years, because their meaning and perception change,” says Veronika Nurkova. “We see time on them that has gone forever. Photography gives an illusory opportunity to step into the same river twice and experience the same emotions again.”
In addition, old photos allow us to see our “future” destiny. In a pose, gesture, facial expression, there is already everything that will later create a picture of a life story (which, of course, we did not suspect then). As in Nabokov’s story “A Cloud, a Lake, a Tower”, whose hero, “looking at a bunch of children waiting for a train, tried his best to look out for at least one wonderful fate and inspected until the whole company of village schoolchildren appeared to him like in an old picture, reproduced now with a white cross over the face of the last boy – the childhood of the hero.