Everyone Is Photogenic

Occasionally this wellness blog will share information whose sole intent is to, rather motivate you to take action, just feel good. Today is such a post, and it comes to us via this Washington Post story about photographer David Suh. His goal is to elevate the everyday people through portraits. Suh has since created posing tutorial on TikTok and elsewhere. “His work and videos are built on his unshakable belief that you are camera-ready exactly as you are. ‘For me, everyone is inherently beautiful,’ he tells [the Post] over Zoom from a low-lit nook in his studio. ‘Just the fact that they exist is beautiful.’ All you need to look fantastic in photos, he insists, is some posing and picture-taking practice, plus — and he knows this is the hard part — genuine faith in your own innate beauty, as defined on your terms and no one else’s.”

Suh gives a combination of general and practical advice. He says “you build who you are, and because you feel more secure in your identity, to me, that is what is attractive.” And that, in turn, “applies to being attractive on film. When you get to express that … you get to represent yourself the way you want to.” But he has also built a library of practical guides. He posts a combination of useful how-tos and earnest affirmations. You can find him responding to a disabled trans man seeking guidance on how to pose with his walker; showing a woman how to take solo pictures (which built to an impassioned takedown of the way society tells women not to take up space); offering a posing guide that contrasts a “Shy Couple” with a “Power Couple.” He ends his practical-yet-playful lessons with a duck quack sound effect.

Want to learn more? Check Suh out at https://www.tiktok.com/@davidsuh/