Smiling With My Teeth

March 24, 2015 - 5:29pm - by Alyson Shane

I was going back through some old photos the other day and I noticed a trend that I think a lot of people fall into: I was making the same face in every photo.

See what I mean?

Going back farther, I noticed that I had the habit of making what I refer to as the "Ugly Girl Face" - aka, a generally grotesque or distorted face in photos. 

This face, referred to as the "After Hours Sex Face" thanks to a video that I'd seen online, was one that I pulled because I didn't like how I looked in photos. I felt self-conscious about my hair, my makeup, my personality, and most importantly my weight. 

Making the AHSF was my way of drawing attention away from aspects of myself that I was uncomfortable with; I was able to hide behind it, even in photos.

After a while I started to grow up and become more confident and the AHSF (thankfully) became a relic only available in old, old Facebook albums. 

Except around this time another trend emerged: I started making the same face in every photo. 

If you look at photos of me from 2010-2013, I make the same face in almost every picture: head cocked to the side, close-lipped smile, etc. 

While these photos don't necessarily make me look bad (that would defeat the purpose) they certainly don't express my personality in any memorable way. 

Then, around mid-2014 this started to change. I started smiling with my teeth, laughing in photos, and sharing images of myself that didn't look totally posed and put-together. In fact, my "candid" laugh photos started to rapidly become my favourite pictures. 

The more I thought about this shift, the more I realized that the way that I smiled in the photos was indicative of how comfortable I was with myself: I've spent the last year going through some major emotional and personal changes, which seem to have manifested themselves in a way that I hadn't previously thought about.

I realized that over time I had gone from one extreme to another: distorting my face to mask how I felt about myself deep down, to accepting who I was and sharing it with a huge burst of laughter and a smile.

It makes me wonder about women who pull faces in photos, or strike the same pose in every group photo. Is this what, subconsciously perhaps, is going on? Why do we worry so much about how people perceive these photos of ourselves?

Have you noticed changes in how you present yourself in photos over the years? If so, why do you think that is? Let's discuss!