Cameraphobia: The Fear of Photos?

As a photographer, I start my day by cleaning the camera lens, I charge my camera up, pack it, and cheerfully start my journey. Most of the things that I capture are very peaceful with me. There’s only one specific kind that can’t really cope with me holding my camera, humans.

Humans suffer from many fears subconsciously and some don’t like to even admit it because it only adds to their insecurities. The fear of having a photo taken by a photographer is something that I’ve seen with my own eyes multiple times, that’s what we call Cameraphobia.​

How to Know You Have It?

Sometimes we have phobias and insecurities but we’re not even aware of it, because we never had the opportunity to ask the questions that trigger it, in this case our key question should be: “Am I a 100% comfortable with a camera around?”.

This is your starting point, think of this question and see what it triggers in you, sometimes our subconscious doesn’t like to admit that it suffers from a phobia, it considers it as a sign of weakness so whenever you think of it, you train of thoughts quickly change to something else. But take the time to let an answer appear in your head and think of it seriously.
 

If it turns out that you truly don’t suffer from Cameraphobia, then congrats! But if the answer was something else, most likely you’ll find yourself amongst these types of people:

The Strangers

You are the stranger who walks in the streets, at whatever time of the day. All happy and good, until you see a tourist or a photographer taking pictures of your surroundings. You start watching them very carefully, moving a little faster and taking precautions to not appear in their shot. This is the very basic type.

The Vigilantes

You are the one who tells photographers to stop taking photos, explaining to them that they don’t have permission or it’s private property. But of course, that’s just the fake cause. The real reason is that you get really uncomfortable watching a person capturing the scene, these questions start appearing in your mind: “What exactly is he trying to capture?”, “What is he going to do with the image?” , “Is he taking a photo or shooting a video?”. However, since you don’t have the rights to ask him, you decide to become a vigilante and do the world a favor by stopping him.
 

 

The Friends

The last type are our shy friends that don’t really like to take pictures. They are often too afraid to keep these photos as souvenirs. And not necessarily because they don’t like how they look or are feeling insecure. Some of them are just too bothered with being the focus of attention, it triggers their anxiety. Others might’ve taken photos back in the days but didn’t like them so whenever a new photo gets taken for them, they’re just not so confident about it.

You probably found yourself amongst one of these, right? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with some tips to help you overcome the phobia.

How to Overcome Cameraphobia?

Cameras aren’t supposed to be weapons, they’re creative brushes. People need to know how it can be used to paint marvelous portraits of them and tell beautiful stories.
 

The answer is simply to learn how to embrace the beauty of photography. Cameraphobia can be treated the same as any other sort of fear by facing it. You need to look deep down to the real cause that’s making you an enemy with the Camera Lens. Was it just a terrible picture? Was it an embarrassing situation? Discover the roots of your phobia then try to take another picture or let a professional photographer do it for you. Who knows, you might end up loving Cameras and be finally ok with anyone holding a camera.

“We take photos as a return ticket to a moment, otherwise gone”
 

You can also give selfies a shot, experiment with your camera phone and learn how to take awesome portraits of other people. And maybe next time you see a camera, face it with your smile.