Month: January 2024

What is up with all the high angle pics certain women post on social media? I understand that it’s a simple trick to make yourself look more attractive, but why are we not more self aware that we are blatantly trying to obscure our true selves? So high angle pics make you look more attractive but then many women will complain about the people these pics inspire to contact them…and yet they continue to post them, every day, over and over.

So what? Who cares? Well not only is it interesting to me that so many people will repeatedly use such obvious tricks, but why it works! The angles of pics incorporate aspects of both physical and philosophical relativism. The subjective “truth” of how beautiful someone is depends on the relative angle of the observer.

Relativism about truth is the claim that what is true for one individual, or one social group, may not be true for another and that every effort to adjudicate between context-dependent standards of truth and falsity is bound to be futile.

ScienceDirect.com

But it isn’t only for women. Men can appear to be more attractive and dominant, accentuating features of male prowess by taking pics from LOWER angles.

The journal Psychological Science (Makhanova et al., 2017).

• People’s physical position relative to others may shape how those others perceive them.
• people use relative physical position to manage impressions by strategically positioning themselves either higher or lower relative to ostensible observers.
• Five studies supported the prediction that women take and display photographs portraying themselves in a low relative physical position to highlight their youthful features and appear attractive
• whereas men take and display photographs portraying themselves in a high relative physical position to highlight their size and appear dominant. 
• as do members of other social species, people use relative physical position to manage social impressions, and although these impression-management strategies may have deep ancestral roots, they appear to manifest themselves through a contemporary human modality-photographs.

Women

…being viewed from above (a downward angle) amplifies signs of youth and attractiveness, such as having a large eyes and forehead, and thus appears to be consistent with women’s motives.

Indeed, women appear more attractive when their heads are tilted down and they are thus viewed from a downward angle.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28485703/

Men

“Being viewed from below (an upward angle) amplifies
signs of dominance, such as height and a large jaw, and thus appears to be consistent with men’s motives.

Indeed, targets appear more dominant when their heads are tilted back and they are thus viewed from an upward angle.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28485703/

Interestingly, the researchers found that men and women take pictures from different angles depending on their motive.

And so I am working on this series of paintings that feature high angle pics of women that accentuate their feminine beauty. I incorporate an unsettling gaze into the view’s eyes that shows a bold, unwavering confidence in what they are doing. Also included are examples of mating displays from the animal kingdom as well as hints of underlying discomfort that is always present when you can’t back up the reality you’re trying to project.