For Everyone Who Has Ever Said "I'm Just Not Photogenic"

I hear this one constantly. It comes up in DMs, in discovery calls, in casual conversations when someone finds out what I do for a living. Someone will ask about booking a session and then immediately follow it up with some version of "I just don't think I photograph well" or "the camera hates me" or "I always look so awkward in photos."

I want to talk about this because I think it's one of the most common things holding people back from having photos of themselves that they actually love. And I think the reason most people feel this way has very little to do with how they look and everything to do with how being photographed usually feels.

Being photographed is vulnerable. Full stop.

There is that split second before the shutter clicks where most people hold their breath, stiffen their shoulders, and put on their camera face. You know the one. The smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes because you're too busy thinking about how you look to actually feel anything.

It's a defence mechanism and it makes complete sense. Being seen — really seen — is uncomfortable for a lot of us. Standing in front of a camera and being asked to just exist naturally while someone points a lens at you is a weird thing to do and it takes a minute to settle into.

Here's the thing though. That stiffness, that awkwardness, that feeling that you just don't photograph well? It almost always goes away. It just needs the right environment and enough time and patience to let it happen.

The problem with most photo sessions.

A lot of traditional photography is set up in a way that makes this worse, not better. You show up, someone immediately starts pointing a camera at you, you're told to stand here and look there and tilt your chin down and to the left, and the whole thing feels like a performance you didn't rehearse for.

Of course you feel awkward. Of course the photos look stiff. You were never given a chance to settle in.

I don't work that way. We start by just being in the space together. Talking, moving around, letting the adrenaline fade before I even pick up the camera. I want to know you a little before I photograph you. That's not a nice extra — it's the whole foundation of how I work.

You don't have to do anything.

This is the part people are most surprised by. I'm not going to give you a list of poses to memorize or make you practice your smile in the mirror before we shoot. I might give you a gentle prompt — "tell them a secret" or "walk toward that tree" or "show me how you actually hug each other" — but mostly I just want you to be present with whoever you're with and let me catch what happens naturally.

When you have something to do, your body relaxes. Your hands find somewhere natural to be. Your face does something real instead of something performed. And that's when the good photos happen.

The version of you that your people recognize.

Here's what I've learned after photographing a lot of different people in a lot of different settings. The version of you that photographs beautifully is not a more polished or put together version of you. It's just the relaxed, present, real version of you. The one your friends and family see every day. The one that laughs too loud and talks with their hands and forgets to think about how they look because they're too busy actually living.

That version of you is in there. My job is just to create enough space for it to show up.

You don't have to feel confident to book a session.

I want to say this clearly because I think a lot of people are waiting until they feel ready. Until they feel comfortable enough or confident enough or whatever enough. And I understand that impulse completely.

But the sessions that have moved me the most, the galleries I'm most proud of, have often been with people who showed up nervous and unsure and a little reluctant. Because when someone lets their guard down in front of my camera after being hesitant about it — that's when something really real happens.

You don't have to have it figured out. You just have to show up. I'll take it from there.

Until next time :)

Michaela