Photography as Perspective

Duncan Davidson gives a Psychological Image keynote on a topic that many of us know very, very well: why people hate photos of themselves. It's very rare to meet someone who looks at photos of themselves and always likes the result. It generally just doesn't happen. Davidson gives a fascinating explanation as to why this phenomenon happens: it's a result of our minds mirror imaging ourselves.

This means that what we see on cameras, phones and printed photos is different than what we see when we look in the mirror. Which means we become accustomed to how we perceive ourselves from what we see. So when we see photos of us that look different than how we think we look, naturally we think it's pretty weird.