Rules For Taking Pics Of Fat Chicks
My Flickr and Twitter friend Strph has posted the best Flickr set ever. It’s called “How Not to Shoot Fat Chicks,” and it’s a collection of very familiar rules about how fat women must never be photographed—with accompanying photos that break all the rules. The rules thus far (there are more to come) are:
1. Always shoot her from above.
2. Never shoot her from below.
3. Never shoot the profile.
4. Never let her wink.
5. Never shoot her entire body.
6. Don’t show too much skin.
7. Don’t catch her slouching on a couch.
She adds:
PS: This is my tongue-in-cheek approach to debunking the idea that fat girls can only be attractive with “photo tricks”! Rules are made to be broken. :) I highly recommend breaking them whenever you darn well please.
One thing you will no doubt notice looking at the photos is that Strph is beautiful in all of them. And I hope it also inspires you to post your own photos. (Maybe we can talk Strph into starting a pool; in the meantime, how about the What Beautiful Looks Like pool?) [ETA: Here by request is Strph’s brand new How Not To Shoot Fat Folk pool! Now with added gender neutrality, so come on down!]
To kick things off, here I am with a baby (Don’t take a picture with anyone smaller than you are!) and here I am eating something, with a giant room service tray in front of me (Don’t shoot yourself eating! In fact, don’t shoot yourself with food at all!)
So what are your rules for taking pictures of yourself? And are you willing to break any of them?
Posted by mo pie
Those photos are the best! Strph is beautiful.
You guys look lovely!
For years now my rule for photographing myself has been “Don’t… Ever.” I think I’m inspired to break it today.
I have to agree with the rule “Don’t catch her slouching on the couch.” Nobody looks good slouching. If I’m slouching, it usually means I’m grumpy or bored.
Other than that, I tend to not have any rules. I got in trouble the other night by my friend’s mom because my bra was showing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22709595@N03/2825466046/
If you notice, there are a few other rules being broken. I’m a rebel!
Thanks. This post helped me focus a little and get the post I’ve been working on finished and up.
http://whyme63.diaryland.com/080903_13.html
Hang on, don’t shoot her winking? I must have missed that rule and I honestly can’t think of why that would be so… too scrunchy? And honestly, if I never took pictures with people smaller than me, I’d never be in pictures!
I love this post – my boyfriend breaks these rules all the time when he takes pictures of me. And I have this theory/suspicion that photographs reflect how the photographer sees you moreso than how you actually look.
Makes me wonder if the same rules apply to fat guys…
Hi, I’m strph (aka Steph). Thank you all, so much! I’m honored to make an appearance here… I’ve actually been “following” mo pie on the interwebs since… 1999? 2000? A loooong time. And I’ve lurked here for a long time, so I feel special.
The winking thing is sort of an inside joke, but suffice it to say, I wouldn’t post winking pictures for the longest time because it makes me have about 8 chins (due to the open mouth scrunchy thing). One of my friends kept trying to convince me that my winking pictures were awesome, however, so I’ve gradually posted more of them.
And yes, the men feel the push of the “rules” as well. Maybe not as strongly, but it’s there. I have seen a lot of men on Flickr who unconsciously do the same things. They might break the “don’t show skin” rule more often, though. ;)
Cool!
I have photos of myself at http://living400lbs.wordpress.com/about/ and http://living400lbs.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/life-at-400lbs/
I am breaking rule #5 (Never shoot her entire body) and #6 (Don’t show too much skin). :)
My rule is “photograph yourself only in stuff that brings out your eye color” and also “Photoshop is your second makeup”. I can’t retouch to make myself look thinner, but I’m not happy with every single mole I have just out there.
Cool post, thanks. I will go check out Strph’s Flickr photos.
I do a lot of self-portraits, and I find that shooting from a high angle is most flattering, mainly because it minimizes the chin(s).
When somebody points a camera at me, I’ve learned that rather than flinching and attempting to hide, the best thing to do is smile big. Much better odds of getting a good picture that way!
I also try to remember to stick my chin and jaw out.
Oh, forgot — there’s also that celebrity trick for full-body shots. What you do is stand at a slight angle toward the camera, with one leg in front and one in back, and put your weight on the back leg. It is slimming.
(Not of course, that there’s necessarily anything wrong with looking fat, but if you WANT to look less fat, it helps.)
I have a photographing fat chicks story.
More than 10 years ago, I was working for a tiny rural daily paper. One day, a point-and-shoot camera was thrust into my hands and I was assigned to do a short story about the youth mounted drill team’s recent success. When I got to the barn, about 20 young riders were there. I’m not a photographer, so I lined the kids up, shot the picture and went back to the office. That week, we had hired a freelance photographer to shoot the main art for the paper, because the photo editor was on vacation.
The photos were developed, and from there, the scene goes like this:
FREELANCE PHOTOG ( a woman in her 60s): Well, looks like I should have given you a clinic before you went to this assignment.
ME: Well, I’m not a photographer, so I made do.
FP: The photo turned out fine, but do you see anything wrong with this? (puts photo in front of me)
ME: (Scanning the photo, which amazingly manages to show all the children’s faces.) I guess not.
FP: Well, you managed to get Bovina here right in the front row. You always, always put heavy girls in the back rows.
I kid you not. She actually referred to a child as “Bovina.”
I said nothing.
Whenever I get a headshot done, the photographer is anxious to do his “magic” so my double chin won’t show, and I always have to tell him that it’s okay – I want my headshot to look like me – a fat woman! Otherwise, people will see the headshot, and wonder where the pic of the great fat woman is!
I LOVE the wink shot and the “hitch a ride” shot, although I’m scared to know how Steph set up the photo while she was DRIVING!! 0_0
The funny thing with the driving shot is that while her upper arm is prominent, because it’s out of focus, attention is drawn to Steph’s face (which is absolutely fabulous) and the arm becomes an afterthought. Very fun! :-D
Whoops. I broke the rules.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=43451908&id=4904246&op=1&view=user&subj=4904246
*hangs head sarcastically*
Have recently found this blog. This strikes a chord with me. I prefer photos from the chest up and *always* smile. I just find that what i see when i look in the mirror never seems to be as large as how my body looks in a 2 dimensional photo.
This is so great. I love how honest this is. Me? I avoid the camera. None of us should, but maybe sharing this with the ones that take our pictures, will help us to get back in the frames!
Love it!
I’m embarrassed… I was going to say that I didn’t have any rules. And in fact, lately, inspired by Dietgirl, I’ve been trying to get both my husband and myself in a lot more of our vacation photos rather than just taking photos of scenery–because sadly, someone else is always going to have taken a better one of the exact same thing and these days it’s probably on the internet and I could just download it; and also we’re going to want to remember how much fun we had, not a catalog of the stuff we saw.
The other thing that my friend pointed out is that it’s so much fun to find pictures of, say, your grandparents when they were young, having fun, out doing stuff, etc. I especially love those vintage photos where my grandpa is posing looking all pleased with himself with his shirt off, or someone’s grandma is wearing a bikini, etc. So last time we went to the beach we decided to just take some pictures of ourselves goofing around, “imperfect” bodies and all (inspired by Diary of a Fat Teenager–I guess I’m being inspired by lots of folks today–I was even wearing a two-piece, so there :). The logic was that our grandkids would just think it was awesome to find photos of us being “young and vibrant” and wouldn’t be noticing the stupid “problem spots” we all waste time worrying about.
But, all that being said, I just realized I still do exactly what Patia described when someone takes a picture of me–stand up straight, one leg in front of the other, chin down, stand at a slight angle to the camera. I’m not sure how much of this is me not wanting to look fat and how much is me not wanting to look like a dork, but I’ll have to think about that.
Definitely the double chin out of the shot!
I’m slowly breaking that one though as I accept that it’s part of me (as it is my gran, mum, aunts, cousins…) but every so often I get twitchy because it’s visible. My boyfriend just took a picture of me with it visible. He said it was ‘cutes’ and I should use that picture for everything and he wants to take it into work. It’s even on my blog now. I think it’s cute too but I don’t know how long for.
Such beautiful fun photos. I hope that someday I have this kind of confidence with myself and my body.
Most pictures of myself involve me wearing something absurd or doing something absurd. Animals tend to figure into this. In my previous job, I was nicknamed “python girl” for a while.
My most recent vacation shot involves riding in a zebu (oxen) cart. I figured that if I had to do something that ridiculous, it was damn well going to be documented. I also have a picture of myself next to a huge baobab. Just this morning I was joking that one way to look thinner is to stand next to a fat tree.