(This is a toss-up between GQ and IMHO, if mods want to move it, feel free.)
Is it just me, or do photobooth pictures make everyone in them look insanely attractive? I’ve probably had about a dozen strips taken over the years, and the one constant is that I look really cute in all of them. This is even more true with black and white pictures. And it’s not just me, but everyone I take a photobooth picture with also looks much more attractive in them than they do in real life, or in other pictures. In fact, after seeing photobooth pictures online, it seems that nobody can take a bad one.
So my two-part question is:
Do you look more attractive in photobooth pictures? (IMHO)
Is there some scientific reason for this? (GQ)
If there is a scientific reason, I may just buy a photobooth and cram all my special moments into it whenever I want to photograph them for posterity. Beats the hell out of the red-eyed red-faced pictures I usually take.
Photobooths used diffused lighting, like professional photographers, which can make a big difference. The focal length of the camera lens is also intended for portraiture, unlike the slightly wide-angle (and facially unflattering) lenses on most single-lens cameras.
I had the exact opposite experience. The one time I tried a photobooth, I ended up looking horribly washed out and creepy with the harsh lighting in the booth. Maybe I’ll give it another whirl next time I’m at the mall.
IME, photobooth pics also tend to range from slightly to moderately under-exposed. Darker, underexposed pics tend to wash out a decent amount of blemishes and hard features.
For me, no. I am not photogenic with a normal camera and photobooths just make everything worse. (the flash is all wrong, and I’ve often ended up looking like a blob with eyes and some weird white patch on my forehead).
Photobooth shots give me a 1930s/40s urban palooka look that I greatly prize. I have two sets taken 12 years, 15 lbs and a full natural pompadour apart that make me look like I stepped right out of Weegee’s World.
