Smile in the picture anyway. Future you will want proof you were happy in the middle of the process.

Photographs taken during an awkward stretch turn out to be the ones you value most, which is unfortunate timing, since the awkward stretch is exactly when you least want a camera near you. The braces, the haircut, the uniform that did not fit: later all of it is just evidence that you were there and that you laughed.

Get in the picture this week instead of stepping out of frame or asking for it to be deleted. Keep the one you dislike for a year before judging it. Take a few nobody will post, on purpose, because those are the ones you look at in ten years.