Which is more accurate to how we actually look mirrors, or photographs and selfies?
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Photos will show you how you look to other people. Mirrors do the opposite. My face isn’t perfectly symmetrical and I was blown away the first time I realized how differently I look to other people from what I see
The mirror shows you in reverse compared to how you actually are and how other people see you. Photos are therefore more accurate.
Photos are how the world sees you. Mirrors are a horizontally flipped version of you.
Studies have found that your brain ‘falsely’ adjusts/ increases the perception of your own attractiveness when you look at yourself, based on the way you look at yourself most at the time (probably the mirror). This effect can be experienced when you normally find yourself more attractive in the mirror than on (non flipped) photos of yourself.
If you find your photo better after flipping it horizontally, that’s what’s happening inside your brain.
More in depth explanation:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/why-selfies-sometimes-look-weird-to-their-subjects/359567/
My arat teacher once said a camera has one lenses were you have two eyes. Your eyes are always going to be more accurate then a photo.
Mirrors, for a variety of reasons. But basically it comes down to mirrors being as close to an exact re-creation as physically possible, while all the lenses and imaging materials (either film or detector) distort the image. Even at their very best, lenses will be always be worse because we’re jamming all that light through a (relatively) small hole. Mirrors don’t really have that problem. Mirrors are also typically flat, which minimizes other sources of distortion.
Mirrors, cameras don’t capture light the same way as our eyes do, they change hues, shades and most importantly they distort.
Take a selfie with your face really close to the camera, take another far away but zoom in.
In the first photo your features will be stretched and dramatized, in the second flattened and smooth. Your face distorts
There’s a mirror that is exactly at 90 degrees so that you see yourself in the mirror exactly as others see you instead of a mirror image. This would be the most accurate.
While this is sort of a phylisophical question, I’ll argue that a mirror is most accurate. While yes it will be horizontally reversed, the colors and depth will be much closer to real life than any photograph will ever be.
As most people in this thread are saying, photographs are more accurate than mirrors due to the mirrors showing a reversed image of what you are looking at, this is also why people think they lok so bad in photos, it is because they are used to the reversed image.
Mirrors are very accurate when they are not bent or deformed. They will flip your image though.
Photos can be accurate but it depends on the lens you are using. Most cellphones have a wide lens which is not accurate at all and modifies the size/shape of your nose and face when taking selfies.
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