Question- looks

[Kathy4ever]

Do you ever get dressed and do the make up and you look in the mirror and you look like you could pass but take a picture and it totally doesn't look convincing? I'm not sure which way is the true picture.

[DAVIDA]

Hi Kathy!
I find that when I look into a mirror, I see what I want to.
But, as I have found out (to my dismay), pictures don't lie.

[Erica Marie]

For me its just the opposite. Most of the time I see me in the mirror not the pretty girl I imagine I could be. But if I snap a few pics I appear as if I could pass among the real women of the world. So I see your issue, that is why it is nice to have the comments of the other girls here on our pics. Yet it would be nice at times to be critiqued by a gg in person to see of we could really fit into their world.

[Raychel]

I don't do makeup, so when I look in the mirror, I see
a guy in a dress with nice boobies. sure they are siicone
but still nice.

[Beverley Sims]

Yes, and that is when we get over critical of ourselves.
We see all our own familiar bumps and flaws, others do not see them as clearly as we do.
To get a true picture, look at the television and then look briefly at the photo then look away.
What did you see then?
More than likely what others see.
Are you convinced?
Neither am I.
It is the best I can come up with though.

[Angela Campbell]

Pictures lie! Anytime you take a picture you are taking a 3D image and transferring it to a 2D image. This distorts it a lot. What you see in the mirror is influenced by what you want to see but then again so is a picture of yourself. Trust the mirror for what you look like. Pictures are difficult to get to look like the real thing and some people just do not take good pictures.

[linda allen]

The picture is what you really look like. It shows things you overlook in real time. How many times have you taken a picture outside and when you look at it, it looks like a tree or telephone pole is growing out of someone's head? You didn't notice that when you took the picture because your mind was concentrating on the subject, not the background.

Now, we can use these pictures to our advantage. Look at that picture closely. Are your boobs where a GG's boobs would be or are they too high (something I often see with crossdressers, especially if they are using socks or foam to fill their bra)? Are you standing like a woman or standing like a guy? Are you smiling or frowning? How about your hips? Too skinny for a female? Do you need some padding? Does your wig look natural or does it scream wig? How about your makeup? Do you look like a GG out and about or do you look like a prostitute?

I've taken dozens, perhaps hundreds of photos of myself dressed and I use them to get better at it.

BTW: What you see in the mirror is reversed from real life.

[Jocelyn Quivers]

Yes to my everlasting horror! I will pick an outfit, which I think looks good and flatters my body type. Do my make up, and hair, look in the mirror, and think I look like a million bucks. Then I take a few pics and 1. I look like I'm a stuffed overweight cow. 2. My make up looks a very bad drag queen impersination, and I am basically demoralized. Usually changing the angle of the pics can make a big difference other times the outfit will not work and has to trashed or given to the Mrs.

[kimdl93]

Lighting can make a huge difference from one picture to the next. Try changing the knighting as you look in the mirror. You'll see how much your appearance changes.

[stephNE]

Hi Kathy, I sort of think the opposite. I have taken a few pics (and posted here) that look much better that I actually do. Take a bunch of [pictures. I may take 20 before I get one that looks convincing.

[Kate Simmons]

Mirrors tend to lie, pictures don't.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Kathy, You are looking at the worlds toughest critic when looking into the mirror.

[Teri Ray]

This is a great thread. I find similar feelings when looking in the mirror "hey looks good" and then take pictures and find "uh mmm well maybe not" The great thing is I get to keep trying for the best look.

[Maria S]

I look good in the mirror but I can still see me underneath and no amount of makeup will ever hide that and to be honest I would not want it to. Photographs? I usually look like the outcome of cosmetic surgery that's gone wrong.

Maria

[linda allen]

If you want photos that show you as people see you, snap away, that's what you'll get.

If you want photos that make you look good, photo editing software and a little practice and skill can do a lot.

[NicoleScott]

My camera lies. I have to use photo editing tools to make it tell the truth. haha

[Ms. Laura]

Now wait a minute. Photos lie too. It depends.

A flash seems to see right through makeup, leaving you worse than bare.

My wife looks bad in photos a lot of the time, but not to the eye. It's static, often during facial transitions, bad artificial lighting, etc. It might be accurate to the mirror if you were under a giant fluorescent bulb!

I don't know, most people look pretty normal out and about. Put them in amateur pics and they often look like garbage.

"Cold hearted orb that rules the night, removes the colors from our sight. Red is grey and yellow white, but we decide which is right, and which is the illusion."

[Lacyfem]

This is a good question as I love to take pics when dressed and have hundreds. However, once dressed I do look in the mirror and what I see is an unattractive woman usually but one that feels good inside feeling like a woman. I think it's a self confidence feeling when I turn into a woman and definitely depends on what I'm wearing as like a lot of womem I look better in some types of outfits and not in others. Also, makeup is critical as it takes time to do good makeup and sometimes I don't take that time and it shows and a photograph will point out all the flaws quite quickly so good reason take them and improve my dressing and makeup.

[Cheryl T]

We are much more forgiving than the camera and when we gaze into a mirror it's so easy to tell ourselves we look beautiful, etc.
When we look at a picture we are much more critical as we begin to analyze it from the perspective of others and then we have the other side of the coin. The reality is tucked somewhere in between our desire and our criticism.

[Karren H]

I'm back asswards..... I take a photo and think I look pretty damn convincing then look in the mirror...... sigh..... but then I go out enfemme anyway because I don't care what anyone thinks.....

[Barbra P]

As an avid amateur photographer and I know that photographs lie. They lie due to bad lighting, bad exposure, poor white balance, poorly focused or camera shake, poor depth of field control, just to name a few of the problems. Out of tens of thousands of photos taken with my DSLR cameras, that supposedly have sophisticated auto white balance systems, I have yet to see a photo that didn’t need some degree of WB correction. If the white balance is off so are all the other colors, and even if the white balance is correct, human skin colors may still be off and need correcting. The use of a flash almost guarantees a poor outcome (harsh shadows and blown highlights, too much contrast, washed out colors, etc), one of the reasons a really good professional flash system generally costs more than even the best cameras.

Lighting and exposure go hand-in-hand. Even if the lighting is perfect, and it never is, poor exposure will ruin the photo. Even on photography forums many amateurs don’t understand depth of field and/or how to control it. I see the photos on this site and gringe, they are that bad from a purely technical point of view.

But I also feel that there is probably a certain amount of truth to the argument that many of us see what we want to see when viewing ourselves in a mirror.

[Kate Simmons]

Karren may be bass ackwards but that gal is always pretty on here. I guess the best thing to do really is just ignore both the mirror and the camera and go out and have some plain ass fun.

[Barbra P]

I did an experiment a few years ago where I showed people photos (head and shoulder) of themselves and asked them to pick out the one they liked the best. In actuality the photos were the same photo accept that one had been flipped, and they invariable picked the flipped photo as their favorite. The reason is that the flipped photo represented what they were used to seeing – what they saw when they looked in a mirror. As a side note, very few of them realized that the two photos were in fact the same photo; many wouldn’t believe it even after being told.

[docrobbysherry]

If photos didn't lie like rugs, I'd never post pics of Sherry and Hollywood wouldn't exist!

In real life, Sherry can't pass as a female any better than a raccoon can pass as an elephant!

[Stephanie47]

I find that's a common problem, whether en femme or en drab. Somehow the mind is conditioned to see what its wants to see.