Not being photogenic

Every so often I feel down in the mouth when I find that whenever I take a picture of myself or with friends, I bear resemblance to a donkey. It just doesn't look like me at all; I look extremely ugly. Does anyone of you find that when a photo of yourself has been taken, you don't look like the image you see in the picture? But when you check yourself out in the mirror, it is completely a different image. I suffered from an inferiority complex because I thought that people don't see me the way I see myself in the mirror. I don't want to feel so bummed out anymore, so I googled to see if anyone has the same problem as me. Well, apparently yes. After looking in the forums, I am back to my usual happy self because I was wrong about the part where I thought that people don't see me the way I see myself in the mirror.

Someone wrote this on one of the forums that puts a smile on my face:
"Oh wow, you're just like me! I hate having my picture taken because most of the time my face gets distorted somehow, especially when photos are taken with digital cameras. There are a handful of pictures of me that have out great, and some of those were actually driver's license photos.

The fact is, some people just aren't photogenic. They may be quite attractive in person, but photographs don't show it. I remember a friend of mine once showing me pictures of one of his friends. The guy didn't look very impressive in the photos, in fact he looked very average, but when I actually met him I was blown away by how handsome he was.

Some average people, on the other hand, are so photogenic you can't take a bad picture of them. I've seen this happen. I've seen women less attractive than me in person look 10 times better in photographs. It's so frustrating!

I remember reading a photographer's message board once, and several of them were trying to photograph models. Some were complaining that the girl was gorgeous in person, but they couldn't do a thing to make her look gorgeous on film. I suspect some women don't get modeling jobs because their beauty just isn't captured on film.

My brother is a rather good-looking guy, but most photos of him come out looking terrible.

I've found that when I see pictures of myself right after they're taken, I get really upset. After some time has gone by, some of them actually start to look good. Part of it the problem is I'm super critical of myself. But I know what you're dealing with. I've had the same problem my whole life."

From wikipedia:
"A person described as being photogenic may not necessarily look so photogenic in real life. Often, a person who appears attractive in real life may look less attractive in photograph. This phenomenon is caused by the three dimensional and two dimensional polarizing effect and could explain why a person looks "better" in two dimensions than in three or vice versa. Therefore, a person described as photogenic means he or she looks better in two dimensions.

An additional factor is the charisma a person might bear in real life due to the way they move, express, and behave themselves. While this will positively influence the subjective appearance of that person in real life, a still photograph usually fails to reproduce these attributes, possibly rendering a picture of the person less attractive than the real-life perception and contributing to classify that person as less photogenic."

So I am not photogenic after all. Whatever it is, I am never ever going to take pictures of myself again until I die. The end.