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Mountain Goat
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05 Apr 2020, 10:50 am

I don't do pictures of my self on those little avatar things as I am very uncomfortable with it but for different reasons then expected.

Most people whi choose not to do this will make this decision based purely on privacy, and though in a way I like to stay private, this is not the only reason why I don't do it. I just don't like an image of me looking directly at myself.

Ok, I am a bit uncomfortable with direct eye contact. I always have been. I have developed ways around this by first looking directly at someone and then looking to one side of their face or another which makes them think I am keeping eye contact but I'm not. I cant think effectively and do direct eye contact at the same time, so I tend to do it (To be polite) by looking directly at the other person when I am not speaking and they are not speaking if that makes sense? This is usually best done from a distance. I have to stare directly if I need to "Learn" their face, as I also have a touch of prosopragnosia so unless I do this I wont be able to remember what they look like. (People can get freaked out by this and feel awkward and uncomfortable, so usually I try to remember their clothes instead or their shoes or something. When I used to work trains, I would remember where they sat. I didn't remember what they looked like. The whole train would be done based on where they sat, so what could throw me was if someone got off the train and a new person got on and took the exact same seat, or if someone swapped seats without me noticing).

But anyway. I could do a distant photograph of myself doing something where I would be looking away, but not a direct eye contact photograph.

Does anyone else feel the same?



magz
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05 Apr 2020, 11:20 am

Mountain Goat wrote:
But anyway. I could do a distant photograph of myself doing something where I would be looking away, but not a direct eye contact photograph.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Oh... well... :D


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Karamazov
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05 Apr 2020, 11:24 am

Hehe, yeah: I did try a couple of times to upload a so-distant-it’s-virtually-a-silhouette shot, but getting it sized right from a mobile phone was beyond my technical abilities, and I’m not that fussed... :lol:

Wouldn’t upload one I was clearly identifiable in though, even if a do ever get round to figuring out how to do it.



JimSpark
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05 Apr 2020, 12:08 pm

How about this: Go to a place with beautiful Welsh scenery where people like to take pictures, and have someone take your picture there. But instead of you looking at the camera, turn your entire body around with your back to the camera, and have them take a picture of you enjoying the scenery. It'd be next to impossible for anyone else to identify you that way, but it's still you, and you aren't uncomfortable looking at yourself staring back :lol:


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Mountain Goat
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05 Apr 2020, 1:09 pm

I am fine. I have my 7mm narrow gauge loco. number 1 up as a picture.



luzzybinnedheart
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05 Apr 2020, 4:35 pm

I have next to no pictures of myself :( .


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Velorum
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05 Apr 2020, 4:41 pm

I avoided this by using the picture of an actor that I like - Frank Finlay

I have the same problem with eye contact though I taught myself to initiate it and give the illusion on maintaining it on my late teens

I either focus in the persons forehead or kind of defocus and look straight through them. Combining this with looking away quite frequently gets me by. It can be hard work though!

Looking at myself isnt a problem as such but has always been something of an odd thing for me - I find its hard to accept that it is me and I am often surprised that it is. Hard to describe but thats the nearest I can get to it


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naturalplastic
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07 Apr 2020, 6:29 am

I was just going to suggest that ^.

Many folks post pics of celebs, or of comic book characters, or a person from history, as stand ins for themselves.

Often its quite effective. The WP person picks a stand-in that correctly projects the right personality.



Mountain Goat
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07 Apr 2020, 7:02 am

I couldn't do that. Put a picture of someone else. It has to be a train!



Karamazov
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07 Apr 2020, 7:34 am

After reading the new posts on this thread I decided to sort myself an avatar.

It’s of Francisco Tarrega. :D



JimSpark
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07 Apr 2020, 9:09 am

Nowadays in pictures, my eyes are almost always looking at the camera, and I look normal. But there was a period when I was a teenager where almost every picture of myself showed my eyes looking sideways. There were pictures taken on a school band trip where I was in about 10 of the pictures, my body was always facing the camera, but my eyes were looking sideways at the moment the picture was taken. It was unsettling to see so many such pictures all at once.


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08 Apr 2020, 12:30 pm

I never make my avatar or profilre photo on a website a pic of myself. I always go for something related to my special interests (like how I have Scully from The X-Files as my pic on everything, even my school's website and Facebook) or an anime character. Occasionally, I'll put a photo of my cats, but I don't like the way I look and I feel awkward too and I'm horrible at trying to take selfies. I look bad also when others take photos of me. The last time I saw my friends, one of them took a group picture of us and I look like I'm about to cry even though I was in a perfectly fine mood.


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CockneyRebel
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08 Apr 2020, 8:19 pm

I've found that images of The Kinks work best for me. I'm something of a Cockney spirit and The Kinks are from London. I went through a dark phase for a few years until that commercial about the aging Jewish population started to be shown on Me TV and I watched the short documentary about the Holocaust titled 'The Day of Smoke'.


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CockneyRebel
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08 Apr 2020, 8:22 pm

Let's just say that I came out of WWII, back into the 60s. The 60s to me is all Swinging London and Carnaby Street opposed to San Francisco and The Summer of Love. Cockney spirit, I guess.


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