I am not a slender woman. You don’t really see that much because I tend to stick to snapshots of my face, like this one (left) I took after a recent Smashbox event to showcase the brand’s new crazy lightweight full-coverage foundation. The image on the right was taken with a proper camera just a few minutes earlier.

My weight starts really showing itself from my shoulders down, and congregates mostly around my middle. But this isn’t about my weight, it’s about correcting that belief that “the camera adds 10 lbs.”

Kids, it isn’t the camera that adds pounds, it’s the lens. What’s more, each type of lens delivers a different result, which of course makes annoying sense. Obviously iPhone front-facing camera lenses distort too. But, as long as I position myself in the centre of the frame and not too close to the screen (to avoid even more exaggerated distortion), as far as I’m concerned they tend to show my face in proportions a little closer to what I’m used to seeing in my mirror. Or a little closer to what I’d prefer to see.

Really, an iPhone front-facing camera lens is like that skinny mirror we all want to have at home (and in clothing-store change rooms).

Although I do own a DSLR, like lots of people these days I take all my snapshots on my phone – it’s so much more easily portable. And frankly, I don’t know much about proper photography and lenses and all that, although one of these days I’ll take a course or several, or so I’ve been promising myself for years. I also can’t speak knowledgeably on lenses in part because things like “20mm,” “35mm,” and “150mm” combine numbers with letters and that makes me crazy. (Only partially kidding – when MP3s became a thing, my brain rolled its eyes and went on strike.)

This diyphotography.net post and gif, first shown to me by a friend a couple of years ago when I wondered aloud why I look so different in snaps on my phone vs professional shoots, helpfully shows how each lens sees the face. Key words to remember are “focal length.” And the higher the focal length, the flatter or broader the face appears. Somewhere in that range is a “most realistic” representation.

Ordinarily, I’d just not show you “real camera” frames from an event because I struggle with how those pro photo lenses see me. (Or maybe how I see myself through their lenses.) But the Smashbox “real camera” shots in the Insta-embed below (swipe left), taken just before my selfie, are fun! And really, what does a few broader frames matter when my primary camera is my cleverly flattering iPhone? *grin*

Makeup by the fabulous Lori Taylor Davis (@lotayray44), global makeup pro for Smashbox, makes me look all glamorous; moody expression is me trying not to look like I was taking a selfie on the sidewalk. And I’m wearing eyeshadow!

I’ve uploaded an IGTV chat with Lori about getting the most out of full-coverage foundation and whether eyeshadow palettes are over; I’ll put it on Beautygeeks too shortly, with a little more about the foundations.

For now I’ll say this: the new Smashbox Studio Skin Full Coverage 24 Hour Foundation (comes in 40 shades) is SERIOUSLY weightless – I felt nothing on my skin, not even when that stupid food poisoning hit me later that night and I was too weak to remove my makeup until two days later. (No, I don’t have any photos of that.)

This is maybe a bit of a weird post, and perhaps not new information, but I thought perhaps some of you might be curious about this sort of thing as well. It’s a little geeky, I know. *grin*