By Tata Rossi 23 days ago, Photography Tips
As a portrait photographer, I know well that more than 90% of people are not enthusiastic about being photographed and I often need to correct body curves or remove a double chin in Photoshop, so that the client is satisfied with the final shot.
The main reason why do you look fatter in photos is optical lens properties, but there are also other factors that influence the result. These are your posture, sloppy clothes, and hunching, which can make your neck and torso look shorter.
The lens focal length is how much of a scene the camera's sensor captures, which is namely a field of view. The longer the focal length, the narrower the angle of view.
Different focal distances cause various lens distortions in your pics, so a model will look thinner or thicker. Note that if this parameter is configured improperly, a camera will smoothen out your striking and peculiar facial features, making your face look fatter than it actually is.
Remember your close-up photo against a white background on your driving license, which no one likes.
The angle a photographer uses to take a photo has a great influence on how you appear in a pic as well. However, to highlight such features as a jaw line you’ll need to perform a more complex procedure, not just tinkering with high and low angles.
Note that your reflection in the mirror is sure to be different from how you look in the picture. This is because of different kinds of illumination: regular home lighting and the light of your photography location (outdoors, indoors), which greatly depends on the time of the day, weather, etc.
As a rule, shooters use dramatic lighting to make extreme modifications to a person’s appearance in an image and make sure a model does not look fat in pictures.
There are both photography-related and non-photography-related factors that can add a few kilos to your figure.
For example, your height and shape greatly depend on the way you stand. Based on posture, you can look slimmer or larger, higher or shorter.
If you are used to slouching or hunching, your posture will be far from ideal – with the protruded stomach and rounded back, you may forget about a slender and shapely look.
The majority of modern women jump through hoops to follow all the ‘latest and greatest trends’ to look awesome and up-to-date. However, as experience shows, this is the biggest mistake they could ever make.
Most often these clothes do not suit them, as the companies advertise their outfits with only one intention – to sell as much as possible. Posing in such trendy apparel, there is no wonder why many people wonder “why do I look fat in pictures”.
Truly, some clothes really fit me, but some of them look ridiculous.
Camera phones usually have a wider lens, meaning that you are likely to be thicker on photos taken on such a device. Note that wide-angle lenses are a better option for shooting landscapes, but when it comes to taking selfies, you had better avoid this type of accessory.
For instance, the ultra-wide lens on the iPhone offers a 13mm angle of view. They are specifically designed for capturing some nature scenes or interiors, but this width can even distort such settings.
Even plastic surgeons claim that a phone camera amplifies facial features no matter whether you are taking photos inside vs. outside in natural light. This is because of the perspective distortion effect, which makes things seem larger than they actually are.
Take advantage of these effects for accelerating your post-processing and get high-quality pics even if you are sure that you look fat in pictures. Turn your dull and unlively images into eye-catching and breathtaking compositions in just several clicks and enjoy your slim look in photos.
When looking at yourself in the mirror, you will see a reversed image, so beyond doubt, a mirror provides a more accurate image than a camera. Again, there are many aspects that define your appearance in images like the distance between a camera and a model, lens thickness, etc.
No. The distance between a subject and a camera, as well as the thickness of your lens, can make you appear wider than you really are. This is because of a wide-angle lens that distorts an image to simply fit as wide of a view as possible into the image frame.
Fix it by selecting the right angle and adjusting the optical parameter of your DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Really, when taking selfies using front-facing phone cameras, a person's face looks fat in pictures. This is because of the short distance between a model and a wide lens. To avoid such an effect, use a rear-facing camera to increase the distance between you and the camera to get the desired look.
