If you—or the people you take photographs of—always look bad in images, then help is at hand. Professional portrait photographer Peter Hurley suggests you squinch next time you have your picture taken.


If you're unaware what squinching is, join the club! Merriam Webster defines it as:

SQUINCH transitive verb 1: to screw up (the eyes or face); squint 2: to make more compact.


But in fact Hurley has taken the word and used it to describe the "action of squinting your eyes in such a way as to portray confidence and self-assurance as opposed to the fear and uncertainty that you project when you stare wide-eyed at the camera." Crucially, it's a little different to squinting, which leaves you looking a bit... odd. Instead, you lift and tighten your lower eyelids, and let the top ones come down just a fraction.

The results are actually quite impressive. Indeed, this video shows how you can get your squinch on, and the benefits it will have—as do the images below, pre- and post-squinching. And you just know that even the least vain of us are gonna give it at least a little try. [YouTube via Peta Pixel]