How to Not Smile Awkwardly in Picture (5 Easy Ways)

Smile is a universal language of happiness and connection. Yet, it becomes difficult and uncomfortable for many, leading to those dead awkward smiles, especially when posing for a picture.

Do you know a pleasant smile is the world’s most powerful gesture? It can change the mood of another person within seconds even with strangers. In this article, we will be looking at common reasons that cause awkward smiling and how anyone can fix it in 5 simple and easy ways, resulting in a natural and attractive photogenic smile.

What does Photogenic mean?

We use the term “Photogenic” to describe something that looks attractive in photographs effortlessly. It can be anything like People, places, landscapes, etc. So if someone is looking appealing with minimal effort while another person is struggling to get a good photo. The prior person is more photogenic than the later person.

Common Reasons for Awkward Smiles

There are several reasons why you might end up with an Awkward smile, especially in photographs. You are tensed about something, not in the moment, feel uneasy, unsure about the situation, going through appearance complexity, lack of confidence, some unpleasant experience, feel like your smiling pictures are usually very bad, etc

How to Not Smile Awkwardly?

We know several reasons can lead to awkward smiles and honestly, we can’t control all the situations but here we will be talking about 5 easy ways to stop our awkward smile irrespective of any situation we are in.

1. Big Smile For 5 Seconds

Before you jump into the photo frame, make sure to relax your facial muscles. Because of the situation you are in, your facial muscles get naturally rigid. And even though you try to smile it lacks real happiness which generally looks fake awkward smile.

Smile as wide as possible for at least 5 seconds to stretch out your facial muscle and reduce its rigidity. This relaxes your facial muscles and you are ready for a nice click.

Related –

As per the study done in 2014, Facial exercise helps to improve a person’s smile. So do check out Facial Exercises for your cheeks

2. Close Your Eyes & Think About Something That Makes You Happy

We all go through bad times and bad moods, but thinking about something that cherishes your mood and makes you happy is another quick way to fix your uneasy smile. Along with giving relaxation to your facial muscles it also makes you feel mentally relaxed.

The Trick is simple,

Close your eyes, and think about something that makes you happy. It could be your dog, cat, loved one face, your favourite dish, ice cream, etc.

Now open your eyes, turn around, and you are ready to get clicked.

3. Say Money, No Cheese

We all have kept hearing about saying cheese all our age. But Saying Money is an upgrade to the old tradition of saying cheese.

How?

It has been observed that saying Cheese only helps in relaxing the upper jaws but completely skips the lower jaws. Thus when you say cheese your smile is not a complete smile that can turn into a fake within seconds.

Saying Money will relax both of your jaws and help to maintain your natural smile. This is the quickest fix that we had on this list. It’s worth trying…

4. Run the Motorcycle From Mouth for 10 seconds

It is a simple and awkward exercise, to be honest. But very effective enough that even singers practice it to relax their facial muscles and jaws.

You simply have to make a motorcycle sound from your mouth for at least 10 seconds. It relaxes facial muscles, and both jaws as well as modulizes the voice. So you also sound better…

5. Take Videos instead of Picture

It is not a trick to avoid awkward smiles in photographs instead it is a workaround. This might sound weird but it works like magic.

Most people have a good smile in the beginning. The only problem is if they have to keep smiling for let’s say 5 to 10 seconds then with every second the authenticity keeps fading and concludes with a fake awkward smile.

While capturing the video, you do not capture an instance of a time but a bundle of instances. Based on your availability, you can find several instances within videos where you had decent to outstanding poses. That’s it, take a screenshot and you get your best picture.

This trick is also very handy when you have only one chance to click a picture and there is no scope for retakes such as posing with personalities or in a hurry moment. This will save your day!

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Hope you liked this article and it helps you enough that you get rid of awkward smiles. Don’t forget to check out Life for more such interesting content.