Dear LPG readers,

Despite the title of my post today, I am not going to feature my own face, but I have a few things to say about all faces, which I can only really tell from my perspective…

I am a lady of a certain age and, for the past 50 years or so, I have taken a little time out each morning to put on a bit of makeup. I have no doubt, my relationship with my bag of paints is much the same as that of many other ladies in the country. I can remember trying it out with girlfriends at school and being quite happy with the results, way back in my teens. However, I also remember the day when I did what I thought was an excellent job before a family outing, only to get to the car and be told by my dad that it all had to come off before we could leave. 

As I got older it became par for the course and part of the ‘getting ready to greet the outside world’ routine which I still feel necessary before I can look in the mirror and recognise myself but, even though the face that I see looking back at me before I get started is older, a bit more wrinkled and greyer, I still recognise and accept it for what it is.  I will say that the 15-minute ritual that I used to dedicate to this part of the day has lengthened somewhat since the good old days because I am now the ‘good old’ part of the equation, but I don’t think I could face the world without a bit of added colour. I am lucky if I feel that everything is in place after 35 minutes these days (I timed myself one day recently). I need more time to maintain what I see as the standard that my face is used to.
   
My mind can accept the reflection I see in the mirror, even though it considers an older me. However, when I look at photographs and videos of myself, I can see all the differences so much more vividly. 

This revelation left me wondering whether I am the only person who has noticed the difference between what the mirror sees and what the camera sees, despite the so-called improvements I try to make. A bit of Google research explained a few reasons why. 

I know that the mirror shows you back-to-front, and I have also noticed that if you are using any video-calling platform, your camera view on the screen is often back-to-front as well. (Not so long ago, I was having an online chat and I realised that the books on the shelves behind me had back-to-front titles.) But there has to be more to it than that. 

For me, it is that moment when you see a family picture and everyone looks OK except you. I have spent a lifetime accepting that there is a difference, but what I have discovered is that, while this is just a niggle for little old me, the young, camera-conscious, internet-image-minded members of the population are more aware of this issue than ever.  We all spend a lot more time being taken in pictures and videos these days, and the young are more likely to aim to post their own somewhere on the internet.

The first thing I learned is that today, it is not only the ladies who are worried about how they look in pictures and videos. 

  
The internet says our brains play a significant role in what we see. The mirror's reflection is what we are used to seeing, and have you ever realised that when we look, we tend to position ourselves to best advantage before accepting that reflection?

The camera lens has become a very complex component as our mobile phones and cameras have evolved. Your average smartphone has at least three lenses on the front before you even think about the one on the back. The internet says a modern phone will include a standard, high-resolution lens and a telephoto lens.  If it took a picture with each, I don’t think I would be any the wiser, but apparently my subconscious would be able to tell;  a slightly wider or longer face, a nose that is slightly bigger or foreshortened,  

If nothing else, my research into what the internet has to say has taught me that image is even more critical to the average person now, which is why I have asked LPG to post some of the explanations I have found for those people who, regardless of age, feel the need to make the best of those pictorial reproductions that will be left on paper or the internet for posterity.

HW, Catford. 

HW shares her research…

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