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Looking bigger than you are in pics - a product of body type?

Janet

(website)

Veteran

I swear I look larger in photos than I do IRL, and I'm thinking it's got something to do with the fact that I'm broader in the hips. I was looking at a photo in which I'm standing next to someone who is maybe an inch taller than me and the exact same weight, but she looks so much smaller than I do! The difference is that she has narrow hips. I think perhaps ITs just photograph better -- probably why so many models are ITs, rectangles or very slim hourglasses.

Is this just my perception? I've been making peace with my body, so I'm not upset or anything, I just wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

General

23 replies

Latest reply was from Janet

Anonymous

OMG Me too....I think the same way, I do look bigger in pictures but I figured I was surrounded by skinny mirrors. We do have a very similar body type. Ummm....

Anonymous

It gets worse when I'm standing next to someone. I always look bigger.

Anonymous

Yes, I think that is true. I always look huge (subjectively speaking) across hip/thighs in a photo -- but I know it is the camera.

Amy

(website)

Veteran

With figures like yours and mine, I think it's harder to find clothes that don't make us look bigger than we are, unless they are very form fitting. To have a blouse drape nicely over my hips, I have to size up considearbly, so then everything above my waist looks bigger than it is. A bust also causes this same Sort of issue.

Clothes hang much more nicely on ladies with broader shoulders and fewer curves to get hung up on. Lucky them

Still, there are lots of good things to be said for a curvier figure. The grass is always greener...

Jjsloane

Veteran

I have often thought this of myself (and I'm an apple), but since I have met you in person (you and Zap) and I do not think you look bigger in photos (and I do not mean that to say you are as big as you think you are in photos). I think maybe it's that the perspective is different without being 3D and depending on the angle of the camera? I think knowing you in 3D puts the perspective on the photos now for me?Or it could be we are our own worst critics (also we only see ourselves in mirrors so not totally 3D)!

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Yep, as a photographer, I'm pretty aware of how dramatically a small change in angle (side as well as tilted up or down) can skew our perception, and the 3D thing is definitely a consideration. Come to think of it, I think the person I'm standing next to in the photo looks *smaller* than IRL, but maybe this is all a big perception game. I'm aware that I am hypersensitive to looking larger in that area of my body, so I think whenever a photo of me appears, my eye immediately goes to that area to check, "do I look big?"

Our brains are sometimes our own worst enemies.

catgirl

Veteran

HA! An IT chiming in here to say that I always feel like I look huge in pix - not tall, but BIG and awkward. And I truly think of myself that way. It always surprises me when my friends call me the midget of the group, or tell me to sit in the middle seat because I'm "shrimpy" or whatever adjective they will use...

Cameras are just funny that way. i guess I can't know till I meet you in real life, though!

Janet

(website)

Veteran

I admit that for my WIW pictures, I'll take a few pics in slightly different poses and then choose the one in which I look the "best" -- usually those are either with one hand on hip (showing the waist) or with my hands hanging down so that they cover the widest part of my saddlebags! LOL

anne

Veteran

I find it quite hard to work out how "big" someone is by looking at the photos here. I do get shocked at how big I sometimes look, and I am ample thighed. But, as I just talked about in my "curvy" thread, I can suddenly get a shock looking in the mirror too!

Diana

Veteran

I definitely think this happens to me too. Not with WIW photos so much because I know about the quirks of my camera angle and photo location, but with candid photos taken by others. I'm kind of used to it by now so it doesn't bug me too much. I am always annoyed by how my face photographs though, especially if not smiling - I swear the camera accentuates the asymmetries and droopiness on one side (residual effect from Bell's palsy). You should see my passport photo (where I wasn't allowed to smile) - I look like death.

(Oh, and my future MIL has this thing about hating to see feet/shoes in photos for some reason so my legs always look shorter and hips bigger when I don't have my feet/shoes to balance them out!)

CocoLion

(website)

Veteran

LOL Janet on the hands at your side to hide the saddle bags ... that's exactly what I do. When I pose with hands on my waist -- and I have a 10.5 inch difference between waist and hips, so shouldn't this picture look great -- all I see is my saddlebags and full thighs.

I have lost a little weight since joining YLF -- not much -- let's say somewhere between 5-10 lbs. I don't know if it's aging or what, but whereas when I first joined I was very much the hourglass and my thighs weren't that bad, now I am losing more weight in my bust (and my waist a little too, thankfully) -- the hips and thighs aren't budging. Same jean size and all.

I am now fully accepting of the fact that I am a pear with a bit of a bust.

And to answer your question yes I think with today's fashion still being the slim leg pant, having curves in the bust or hip/thigh makes you look bigger.

Una you do not look big you look tiny and you have slim legs so that makes you look small to me.

Anonymous

I have a similar body type and I think I look really big in photos. Actually in general I think I'm taller/bigger than I am. I am 5' 8", but I once got in an argument with a store clerk when I insisted that we were the same height. Turns out she was six feet. I guess I want to be more Amazonian than I am!

Transcona Shannon

Veteran

I'm convinced that in some of my pics, I look 6 months pregnant because my tummy is so darned obvious! But I don't see that when I look in the mirror as much - I think pose and camera angle can make a huge difference in how we look.

Thistle

Veteran

Cameras are evil. Yup, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Mo

(website)

Veteran

Hmm, I have noticed in past pictures looking bigger when my waist wasn't defined. Can't say that I feel these days that the camera give me much different info than what I expect. Except for profile pics of my face. That I rarely see in the mirror, so I find them surprising sometimes.

D'Ellen

Veteran

I think I look huge in photos, and my head and face seem gi-normous in relation to others in the photo. I'm an apple with broad shoulders and a thick torso, so maybe it's related to body type. Or maybe I have a distorted perception of my size. I try to avoid photographers (but there are some avid ones in every family), and I very much dislike looking at photos of myself, which is one reason I don't take WIW pics. I prefer to remain oblivious.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

Yeah....I suspect it has to do with whether you are wider looking front on, or wider from the side. Those of us who look wider from the front than sideways can be startled by photos. We don't tend to do those sideways poses, right? Except for K/R.

I wonder sometimes if I don't look SMALLER in photos than IRL. So many people here comment on how "petite" I am. Well...I am not big, and I'm not going to argue with that. I'm about 5'4." And my frame isn't huge, certainly -- but my shoulders are 39" inches around, which isn't tiny. Yeah, my BUST is small - -- but my thighs are the ones my mother describes as a "stevedore's" and I have a bum, too. Photos show it, I think...but people tend to focus on the smaller parts.

Caro in Oz

Veteran

Isn't the camera supposed to add about 10lb? My 10 all goes to my bust I swear.

tarzy

Veteran

All I see in my pictures is THIGHS. I'm posting some boot pics today - I usually do the slight tilt thing, but I wanted to really show the boots, so I took the shots straight on and it's killing me!

Anonymous

I'm hoping it is the 10lbs everyone says the camera adds, my hips look much bigger than I think they are (I am a size 12)

@Suz, I have seen you in real life, you are tiny, no bum, no thighs, your mother has scarred you

Aziraphale

Veteran

I think everybody looks bigger in pics, hip size notwithstanding. Don't they say "the camera adds ten pounds"? All I know is that I saw Princess Diana once in real life, and she was just about the tallest, thinnest person I've ever seen. Much tinier than she looked in pictures, and she looked pretty svelte in those, too.

Beth

Veteran

I've often felt this way and attributed it to being so short-waisted. A few misplaced layers and I've added 10 pounds. I think I look much slimmer without clothes on (Not better, mind you. Just slimmer)

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Beth, I hear you about the short-waistedness! I hate to be photographed while sitting. I look terribly squat.