Face Flip

so my wife noticed something as i was looking over a self-portrait of myself, and something a few readers discussed in the original comments…

the “feel” of this pic is quite different when it is flipped L to R.

this is kind of strange, because obviously the very same pixels are arranged in the very same way in both shots… it just so happens that one is “backwards.”

that lead me to question whether or not a self-portrait should be as OTHERS see you, or as YOU see yourself in a mirror. which one is a more faithful self-portrait?

i hadn’t really thought about that much, since before this impromptu shot i hadn’t considered it to be much of an issue. i knew that faces were never perfectly symmetrical, but apparently, not only is there asymmetry, which side certain features are on can make quite a difference in terms of how we perceive that face.

here’s the “flipped” version, which would be the way that the world sees me (and my stairway, for that matter:

and here is the original version, straight from the camera, which is the way i see myself in a mirror:

which do you prefer? what kind of “vibe” do you get from each? i am sure dissertations on human psychology have been written on the subject of facial asymmetry and the implications of that asymmetry, but they’re likely very dry and boring. so i ask my readers instead…