OMG! I have Horsey Teeth!

With the weather getting warmer by the day, we are spending more time outdoors and doing activities outdoors.  With 2 teens armed with their omnipresent cell phone cameras, there is, as to be expected, a whole slew of photos and cricket-like chorusing of "Mommy! Selfie!" 

I think I've gotten close to perfecting the "Instantly-Smile-But-Make-it-Look-Natural-and-Not Forced" smile.  I've seen my MIL train my kids in this skill since they were toddlers. Grandma LOVES taking photos, especially of her grandkids. But back in the day, there weren't digital cameras and since pictures were taken on film, I would make the bi-weekly trip to Costco to get them developed. Always a double set. One set for her to put in her photo album and one set for me.  Also being film photos, she didn't want me to waste my film or money on developing less than perfect photos with less than perfect smiles.

She had them so well trained that at any instant, they would pop the perfect pose and smile naturally so that it would even show in their sparkling eyes.  Amazing! I, on the other hand, was not trained in this skill set as a youngster.  My parents were not as into taking photos as my MIL was.  All our photos were either taken with us lined up (seniors sitting with children and short people in the front!)  and holding the same smile until our cheeks hurt or they were blurred photos taken as we were "in action".  I never understood whether those were intentional or unintentionally blurry. 

Today, in the age of digital cameras, how easy it is to quickly snap a few in rapid succession and later on, pick and choose the shot of choice.  

My latest article to be translated deals with selfies and a curious phenomenon known as "Horse Teeth".  Read and enjoy!

Help Me, I have HORSE Teeth!

Now that I have teenagers, everywhere we go and with everything we do, all of a sudden, there is a head that comes really close to mine and I hear those dreaded words … “Mommy! Selfie!!”

I have to suddenly change my regular normal face into an instant smiling ray of sunshine because in ½ a second, there will be a cell phone camera stuck in my face and my daughter will snap a photo of the both of us. I don’t even have a chance to say, “Hold on, I’m not ready yet!” As quickly as she can yell “Selfie!”  I will answer back, “Let me see that first before you post it!”  Sometimes it’ll be a good picture of the both of us; sometimes I will have her take it again.  So this is how the new generation is.

I recently read an article about dental offices in London.  They are reporting an increase in the number of people who take selfies, and then go to dental offices because they think they have “horse teeth”.  The dentists say these patients want the dentist to make their 2 upper front teeth smaller and shorter so they don’t look like a horse.  The problem is that the selfie picture is an extreme close up so the image may look distorted.  The 2 front teeth will look like they stick out more and are larger than in real life and so appearing “horsey”. 

The 2 upper front teeth are naturally a little longer and wider than the next 2 teeth so it creates a young, natural upward smile curve but if the selfies photos are taken too close to the face, the picture can be distorted and exaggerate the size of the 2 front teeth.

Selfies are good for keeping a picture journal of everyday life or special events but be careful of depending on them too much as a representation of you see yourself or how the world sees you.