How to be photogenic (it is learnable, not innate)

By Mariya Harley · London · updated August 2026

Distance does more than your features

A lens close to your face enlarges whatever is nearest it — your nose — and pushes the sides of the face away. That single effect is responsible for most of what people call being unphotogenic. Photographed from two metres with the camera zoomed, the same face reads normally.

If you take one thing from this page: step back and zoom in.

Turn, do not face

Square shoulders to the camera give the widest possible outline and the flattest possible shape. Turn thirty to forty-five degrees away, then bring your face back to the lens. Your body narrows, your jaw gains an angle, and the picture stops looking like a document photograph.

Chin forward and slightly down

Counter-intuitive, and the single most effective correction there is. Pushing the chin forward stretches the skin under the jaw; tilting it slightly down keeps the proportions natural. It feels ridiculous and it photographs well — which is true of most useful posing.

Light from the side, never from above

Overhead light drops shadow into the eye sockets and under the nose and chin. Side light fills the sockets and defines the jaw. In practice: turn towards a window, or step into open shade outdoors, and switch off ceiling lights when a window is available.

Do something with your hands

Hands with no task are the most common reason a portrait looks awkward. Hold a cup, adjust a sleeve, put one hand in a pocket with the thumb out. Occupied hands relax the shoulders, and shoulders are where tension shows first.

Move between frames

Held poses look held. Walk, turn, sit down, look away and back. The usable frames are the ones between the instructions — which is why photographers shoot in bursts rather than asking you to freeze.

What does not work

• Practising a face in the mirror. The mirror shows you reversed, so the expression you rehearse is not the one that appears.
• Reviewing every frame on the back of the camera. It makes almost everyone stiffer for the next twenty.
• Smiling on command. Ask for something funny instead and let the photographer shoot as the laugh fades — that is where the real expression sits.