You may be surprised to hear that being photogenic has much less to do with physical beauty and perfect features than it has to do with attitude. Surprised ? It's true.
Having your photo taken can seem like a frightening experience, especially when you believe that you never look quite as good in Portraits. I have heard it almost all, but my favorite is: "I am going to break your lens". Can you guess what you are doing when you are saying this, not to me, but to yourself. Yep, you are making yourself look bad. This is more common than you would think. But most incredible is that I heard this from pretty people too.... but it is quite easy to remedy. Looking good is not a gift from above or a particular talent. It is a larger percentage an attitude, how you feel about yourself.
There are some physical areas you can work on to look good, sure: such as your clothes, your hair, make-up, etc. all indeed important, but not the decisive factor, or even what I am talking about here. What these things do is help you feel good about yourself. And that feeling is what I am taking about here. You will hear or read in my preparations tips that: "If you feel good, you will look good, it's that simple". That's my secret.
My work as the Photographer above the technical aspect, plays an important role and it is a big factor in the outcome, but when you believe it and feel it that it is true, you will look good. This is how you make a bad photographer look like a good one. !
Can you see what I did there? , I turned the tables and I made you a bit responsible for the results we will get. Our job as photographers is then reduced to coaching, finding the good angles, applying proper lighting among a few others. But the one thing you cannot enhance with the best camera or an expensive brand of strobes, not even retouching in Photoshop, is that confident expression on your face !