Pictures, The Mind & The Mirror

Let’s talk about the difference between how you look in the Mirror and how you look in Pictures. I want to talk about this after a long Conversation with Bart, the Owner of The Muscle Factory Bangkok while he was Prepping for the NABBA Mr. Universe 2018, held in Birmingham, The United Kingdom.

Bart never takes Pictures of himself, even when he looks Insane during a Contest Prep. So I recommended him to set up his Studio & Camera, use the Continues Shoot Function on his Canon D3 or use OpenCamera on his Android Phone. Then take some Pictures when he Eakes up in the Middle of the Night, or any other Point during the Day, and feels he looks Freaky and Shredded!

I think a lot of us, including myself, are Disappointed when they look at their own Progress Pictures. Especially when you’ve been Posing in Front of a Mirror and the Camera was at a Different Angle compared to your Eyes. What you saw Moments before, doesn’t Translate to the Picture you see on the Phone or Camera Screen.

It’s happened to me many Times; Setup the Camera with Continues Shoot at 2 Second Intervals and start Posing to get a Large Batch of Progress Pictures. Which I always take in order to decide my Carb-Up / Refeed Protocol for Sunday. Usually when I’m Posing, I’m pretty Happy with what I see; Round, Full & Hard, with more Fibers Showng in certain Muscles every Week the Diet Progresses!

After a few Rounds of Posing into Exhaustion, I Review the Pictures and start picking myself apart; Tired, Watery, can’t pull a Proper Vacuum, Legs are Flat but upper body is Full, etc, etc…
You Immediately start to Doubt how you really look; do you look Good like you did in the Mirror, or you look like Shit like you do in the Pictures? I’m usually not Happy with the Pictures as they aren’t close to what I just saw in the Mirror. Nowadays I just put the Camera or Phone away and give myself a few Hours before I Review the Pictures.

I always end up looking Half-Decent, Fine or even Good on some Days, whenever I Review the Pictures a few Hours or a Day later. Because I took away the Emotional Roller-Coaster after a Demanding Workout, followed by Exhausting Rounds of Posing using the Mirror as Guidance, before I look at the Progress Pictures.

Why does it work better this way? Because the Memory of what I saw in the Mirror has Faded and all I have are the Pictures on your Camera or Phone!

Keep in mind that there is also a huge difference between Pictures taken with a Mobile Phone, compared to a Professional Photo Camera. There is a lot much more Detail in the Pictures taken with a Photo Camera, while the Camera in Mobile Phones usually make you look Washed Out and the JPEG Compression used by Instagram, Facebook, Line, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc. take away the Detail and make you look Worse!

Of course most of us don’t Drag a Professional Photo Camera with us every Time we go to the Gym (unless you’re an Instagram Model), thus we rely on the Camera of our Mobile Phone instead. Real Body Bodybuilders don’t go to the Gym to Model for Social Media, we’re there to Train right?

I think we can all do ourselves a Favor; take Progress Pictures with a Professional Photo Camera once in a while and NOT look at them for at least a Day!