Why do we hate seeing photos of ourselves?Expand
You know what I'm talking about. There you are, clicking through your friend's Facebook album, when suddenly you happen upon a picture of yourself — or rather, a slightly less attractive version of yourself. The "real" you appears to have been abducted, replaced with some second-rate knock off. What gives? you ask yourself. Is that really what I look like?
Yes. Yes it is. But don't worry, there's a perfectly sound explanation for why the person staring back at you looks so very unfamiliar, even though that person is, well, you. And by the way: that funny-looking, ersatz-you in the photograph? They're actually more attractive than you think.
It's mirrors, by the way. The answer to why you hate seeing photos of yourself? It's mirrors. I'm telling you this because it is perhaps the least interesting part of the explanation for why you think the you that exists in photographs is so weird-looking. Some of you have probably even heard this explanation given before; just a few hours ago, EDW Lynch over at Laughing Squid posted a video of photographer Duncan David giving a short TED talk on how "perception, mirrors and the uncanny valley make us hate photos of ourselves." We've posted the video below, but here are the meat and potatoes:
How do we perceive ourselves? What is the map that we use to view ourselves? Well, it's like what no other camera sees: it's a mirror, in your bathroom, at arm's length. That's a very personal view; you're the only person that has this view in the world. Whenever somebody takes a photo of you it does not match [your personal, mirror view].
So my theory — though I'm not a scientist, I'm just a photographer — is that when we see a photograph of ourselves, it looks almost right but not quite, and so therefore we feel a big sense of rejection. Is the theory right or not? We'll see. Maybe somebody will test it.
Well, it turns out somebody did test it, all the way back in 1977. In a study titled "Reversed Facial Images and the Mere-Exposure Hypothesis," psychologists Theodore H. Mita, Marshall Dermer and Jeffrey Knight demonstrate that "individuals will prefer a facial photograph that corresponds to their mirror image rather than to their true image." But what's really interesting about the study is its exploration of why we find our mirror images more appealing. As the title of the study suggests, it relates to something called the mere-exposure effect.
The mere-exposure effect was first proposed in the '60s by Stanford psychologist Robert Zajonc. In its simplest terms, the mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon whereby a person develops a preference for a stimulus based solely on his or her repeated exposure to (and subsequent familiarity with) it. The effect has been demonstrated with an array of stimuli (words, paintings, sounds) and across cultures. It's even been observed in other species.
So when someone says that the reason we hate seeing photos of ourselves is mirrors, understand that what they should be blaming is the mere-exposure effect. Of course, the great thing about the mere-exposure effect is that it's dependent upon individual experience—and that's something you should take comfort in the next time you're lamenting over your slightly-off appearance in a photograph.
The truth is, if photograph-you looked like mirror-image you, everyone else would think you look bizarre. Remember the researchers who showed a person is more likely to prefer a facial photograph that corresponds to their mirror image, rather than their true image? They also demonstrated that the opposite was true when the images were shown to the person's friends. In other words: don't even worry about it. Photograph-you looks great.

Why I hate taking pictures

I hate taking pictures. I really do. People back home keep telling me, "Blessing, please take lots of pictures," and I do, to acquiesce them. Still, I am very grudging and unhappy about it, and every time I take a picture, I feel unsatisfied.

The trouble with photographs is that the whole purpose of taking a picture is to capture a moment, to preserve it indelibly in your mind. But the whole act of taking a picture detracts from the moment you are trying to capture. My friends told me about visiting a fair where there was a million dollar fireworks display. "It was awe-inspiring," she told me, "To tilt your head back and to see the whole sky exploding light. All around me people were taking pictures and looking at their cameras, only to see the whole sky reduced to a two inch screen with a blur of color in the middle. While they tried to capture the moment, they never fully appreciated the moment, and the memory they were left with was one that was just a pale imitation of the moment to begin with."

I think that I've felt a similar tension when I've taken photographs here in Seoul. When I went to the palaces, I took pictures, and then gazed back on the fuzzy, pixelated, and impossibly small image and thought, "It nothing alike." Later, when I looked at the picture again, I found it uninteresting, because I could not feel the soft wind brushing against my sleeves or the feel of gravel beneath my thin-soled shoes. The pictures I took of my students were deleted upon review, because the small, unhappy images didn't laugh and breathe and creep up quietly beside me to whisper, "For you, Ru-nay tee-sher" while slipping a small gift into my hand of a flower, a piece of candy, a picture drawn onto a sticky note.

The problem with memory is it's built on impressions, not accuracy. When I was a little girl and my family moved to Lagos,  the first thing my family did when we moved was to visit the Bar beach. When I close my eyes, I remember feeling so full of awe and breathlessness. The walk from one part of lagos to the beach took what felt like forever, and I wondered if it was the end of  the world. I remember walking up each step of the ocean, marveling at the ocean current, and the way my shadow stretched across the steps in waves. When I got up to the top of the steps, my heart hammered in my skull because I could see the waves. by the beach, I clutched my mother's hand and told her, "I feel like I'm a princess." Coming back years later, I was surprised at how my memory disconnected with reality. In my memory, I forgot the drug-addicts who sit huddled on the steps, groaning for money, the black pieces of gum permanently burned into the soft gray of the steps of oshodi bridge, but a modestly pretty interior that doesn't resemble a palace of any sort.

This blog took me a long time to write. I'm only expressing one area of dissent I have with taking photographs, but not acknowledging any of the merits. First of all, there are some memories, especially particularly horrible ones that cannot be left up to our fallible memories to capture. I think especially of pictures of holocaust camps, or villages burning during the liberian war that need to be remembered even though they, like any picture, can only capture an infinitesimally small portion of the tragedies surrounding them. Finally, even though I said that pictures aren't as good as memories, I need to say that pictures can stir up all sorts of memories for me. Sometimes all it takes is looking at a picture to be hurtled back through space and time and into that laughing moment.

I think that what my real problem is is that I am not a very good photographer. My photographs don't spark things to life for me. Fortunately for me, photographs aren't the only way to make pictures. My best medium has always been my words, and with my words I can draw images for myself so tangible that when I read them, I once again feel the soft outdoor wind, the soft whispers in my ear, and the soft step of my footsteps as I climb an ever-ascending staircase into a palace full of books.