What Happens When You Stop Trying to Look Good
There’s a moment that happens in almost every session I shoot.
It’s never at the beginning. At the beginning, people are still in their heads — adjusting their posture, watching me watch them, second-guessing where to put their hands. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just human. You showed up for a photo session, you want the photos to be great, and your brain is doing exactly what brains do: it’s trying.
The moment I’m talking about comes a little later. Something shifts. Maybe we’ve been talking about something real — their kids, their job, a trip they’re planning. Maybe I said something that made them laugh and they forgot to stop laughing in time. Maybe they just got tired of holding everything together and let go for a second.
And right there — in that second they weren’t trying anymore — is when I get the shot.
Every single time.
The Problem With Trying Too Hard
Here’s what nobody tells you before a portrait session: the harder you work to look good in front of a camera, the harder it is to actually look good.
That sounds backwards. But there’s real psychology behind it.
When we’re self-conscious — when we’re monitoring how we look in real time — we activate what psychologists call “self-focused attention.” You’re watching yourself from the outside. You’re performing. And performance, no matter how practiced, reads differently than presence. The camera doesn’t lie about this. It catches the slight stiffness in a jaw that’s being held just-so. The eyes that are open a half-millimeter too wide because you’re trying to look “natural.” The smile that’s working overtime.
I’ve photographed hundreds of people. I can tell within thirty seconds whether someone is in their head or in the moment. And I can tell you with complete confidence: the best photos — the ones that make people tear up, the ones that get printed and framed — almost never come from someone who was concentrating on looking good. They come from someone who forgot to.
What “Not Trying” Actually Looks Like
I want to be clear here, because I’ve had clients take this too literally.
Not trying doesn’t mean showing up unprepared. It doesn’t mean not caring how you look, not washing your hair, wearing whatever was on the floor. All of that prep still matters — wearing the right colors, getting a good night’s sleep, doing your skincare routine. That’s the foundation. We’ve talked about all of that in this series.
What I mean by “not trying” is something more specific: it’s not performing for the camera once you’re in front of it.
It’s the difference between acting calm and being calm.
It’s the difference between smiling because you’re supposed to and smiling because something is genuinely funny.
It’s the difference between thinking “am I doing this right?” and just… doing it.
That second version is what we’re after. And getting there is actually a skill — one I spend a lot of time helping clients develop during a session.
How to Get Out of Your Own Way
So if the goal is to stop performing, how do you actually do that? Here’s what works:
Give your brain something else to think about.
Self-consciousness happens when your brain has nothing better to do than watch itself. So we give it something better. I’ll ask you questions — real ones, not small talk. What’s a trip you’d take if money wasn’t an issue? What’s something that happened this week that you’re still thinking about? Tell me about the last time you laughed really hard.
Your brain can’t fully inhabit a memory and monitor your expression at the same time. Pick one. We’re going with the memory.
Let the awkward be awkward.
One of the biggest traps people fall into is trying to cover up the discomfort. They tighten. They over-smile. They compensate. But here’s the thing: awkward is temporary. If you just let it be there — “yeah, I don’t totally know what to do with my hands and that’s fine” — it passes on its own, usually in about five minutes. The clients who acknowledge the awkward out loud almost always loosen up fastest. There’s something about naming it that takes away its power.
Stop asking me if it looks good.
I know this is hard. I know you want to check. But every time you break to ask “was that okay?” you’re pulling yourself back out of the moment and back into performance mode. Trust the process. Trust that I’m watching, that I’ll tell you if something’s off, and that when I say “that’s it, right there” — you can believe me.
Move more than you think you should.
Stillness is the enemy of natural. It’s amazing how much a little movement changes things — turning slightly, a slow walk toward me, sitting down and then standing back up. Your body knows how to move naturally. When you’re in motion, you stop having time to think about your face.
What I’m Actually Doing While This Is Happening
Here’s the part of my job you don’t see.
While you’re letting go, I’m not just standing there clicking a shutter. I’m watching for what makes you specifically come alive. I’m noticing when your energy shifts. I’m timing the shutter to catch the split-second between an expression you made on purpose and the one that replaced it — because that one is always better.
I’m also working to make the environment feel like it has lower stakes than it does. That’s intentional. The jokes, the conversation, the weird questions — none of it is accidental. It’s all in service of getting you somewhere real.
My job isn’t to capture how you look. It’s to capture who you are. And the person you are shows up when you stop trying to present yourself, and start just being yourself.
That’s the whole deal.
The Best Photo You’ll Ever Take
I’ve been doing this long enough to know: the photo you’ll love most isn’t the one you were ready for. It’s the one that caught you off guard. The one where you were mid-sentence or mid-laugh or looking off to the side thinking about something that made you smile. The one where you forgot I was there.
That photo is always available. It just requires you to do the counterintuitive thing: stop working so hard to get it.
Come to your session having done the prep. Know what you’re wearing, get some rest, bring the version of yourself you want documented. And then, once you’re there — let go of the outcome. Let me worry about what the photos look like. You just show up, be a person, and trust that the camera is going to find you.
It always does.
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DC Photography serves portraits, families, headshots, and personal branding clients in Reno and the surrounding area. If the Confidence Series has been speaking to you — and you’re finally ready to find out what your photos can actually look like — book a session and let’s figure it out together.
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