Idol Symmetry Pt. 1

You may have heard actors and models on TV talk about their “good side” before. As in “Only shoot me from the left, it’s my good side.”

Well, this is not mere vanity, it’s rooted in scientific fact. As a photographer who’s worked with female models a lot, I can tell you most people definitely have a good side. This is because, for almost everyone, the left and right halves of your face are not exactly the same. From Wikipedia:

“Symmetry, especially facial symmetry, is one of a number of aesthetic traits, including averageness and youthfulness, associated with health, physical attractiveness and beauty of a person or non-human animal according to the authors of Facial Attractiveness: Gillian Rhodes, Leslie A. Zebrowitz. It is also hypothesized as a factor in both interpersonal attraction and interpersonal chemistry.”

Basically, the goal of every organism on Earth is to reproduce and create healthy offspring and to do this you want to find a healthy mate. Asymmetry can imply a genetic or disease related problem, and that is not ideal at all. Some of the actors and models who are considered icons of beauty also possess very symmetric facial features. A trick we photographers can use to find someones “good side” is to take a headshot and flip each side of the face so it is perfectly symmetric. This can drastically change the way someone looks and, very often, creates a clear preference as to which side looks the best.

A photographer friend of mine calls this “The Killer and The Fool”, the Killer being the sexy side and the Fool being the unflattering one. Ideally, both sides are “Killers” but that is very rarely the case. Let’s apply this to some idols and see what we get! (Protip: if you do this yourself and mirror the whole photo, the hair will look weird and probably skew the results. I use my Photoshop wizardy to correct this.)

One of my favorite AKB48 girls is Miyazaki Miho, aka “Myao”. I think she is insanely cute and I love her ability to suddenly flare up with mock anger for comedic effects. She is known for keeping all the other girls entertained during their down time with her silly antics as well as being a huge fan of horror manga and films. I noticed from the start that she has a very asymmetric face, and I think it works for her but let’s see what the “Killer and Fool” do to her!

First up, the un-altered Myao:

Cute!

Now lets see her with her right side mirrored:

Pretty cute still I think, but then I like round cheeks. (She reminds me a bit of Takajyo Aki in this shot, I will have to do Akicha in a future study!)

Now with her left side mirrored:

Yikes! Who is this stranger? Certainly not ugly, but not my Myao anymore!

So we see she has a very asymmetric face but is able to pull it off in my opinion. I know some people who don’t care for her in the least so maybe they are more sensitive to symmetry? What do you think?

I hope you found this interesting and please let me know what you think. I’m interested in all opinions. Next up I will put AKB48′s “number one ace” to the test and see if I can divine the secret to her popularity!

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