Why do some people take pictures that are "not photogenic"?

Psychologists at the University of California, Harvard University found that people think people in videos look better than screenshots of the same video. In other words, even if you feel uncomfortable in the photo, don't worry, others will think you will look much better than the photo. When someone in a video is paused while talking, the static image of this person is usually not as good as the dynamic image when the video is playing. We call this phenomenon "frozen face effect".

Extended data:

This may be related to the way the impression of dynamic face is formed. People will average the same face in different positions and different sides. This is consistent with the previous study that "the average face is more attractive". Another possibility is that "they (dynamic faces) have better activated our facial recognition neural mechanism". After all, the camera was invented not long ago, and our brain's face recognition system was originally evolved to deal with dynamic faces, not static faces.

Researchers believe that this is not because the video contains more information: comparing the video with a group of still pictures taken from the same video, the video finally won more praise. Memory will not be an influencing factor, and good-looking portraits will not be much easier to remember than ordinary ones. However, the researchers found that in order to be considered more attractive, those videos need to be played in order. Video with chaotic frames does not score higher than static pictures.

Researchers are not entirely sure why. One possibility is that with evolution, we are more accustomed to looking at dynamic faces than static ones. Because the brain can recognize dynamic faces more easily, it doesn't need much effort. This result may mean that dynamic faces may be considered more attractive.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Frozen Face Effect