Dad, you look so young in this picture.

[kadioguy]

I: Say, I'm looking at a picture of my father 20 years ago. In this scenario, should I say "Dad, you look so young in this picture" or "Dad, you looked so young in this picture"?

Friend: To me, “looked” feels a bit off. If you are looking at the photos with your dad next to you, then you would use present tense “look”. But if we’re imagining a scenario where Dad isn’t in the room looking at photos with you, you would say something like: “Dad looked really young in this picture.”

PS - AI's answer
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Question: What do you think about this question?

 

[emsr2d2]

I: Say no comma here I'm looking at a picture of my father 20 years ago. In this scenario, should I say "Dad, you look so young in this picture" or "Dad, you looked so young in this picture"?

Friend: A friend of mine said, "To me, “looked” feels a bit off. If you are looking at the photos with your dad next to you, then you would use the present tense “look”, but if we’re imagining a scenario where Dad isn’t in the room looking at photos with you, you would say something like no colon here “Dad looked really young in this picture".”

Question: What do you think about this question?

I would use "Dad, you look so young in this picture". Even if I were relating it to someone else without my dad in the room, I'd say "I was looking at a photo of my dad earlier. He looks so young in it!"

 

[Tarheel]

@kadioguy Is your friend AI?

 

[emsr2d2]

I caved in and looked at the AI response (I normally ignore them because I think learners, of all subjects, are becoming far too reliant on AI). Whilst I agree that both are grammatically correct and are used by native speakers, I disagree with its statement "People use both forms interchangeably". They're not interchangeable because, as it clearly states, the choice of tense has to be based on what the speaker/writer wants to put across.

 

[jutfrank]

should I say "Dad, you look so young in this picture"

Yes.

or "Dad, you looked so young in this picture"?

No, that's wrong. You're describing an image of your father in the past, and this image is in the present time.

When you say your dad looks young, you're really expressing the contrast between the image in the photo and what he looks like now. You don't mean that back when the picture was taken he used to look young for his age.

 

[kadioguy]

@kadioguy Is your friend AI?

I clearly separated the AI and the real person, as you can see below, so, no :

Friend: To me, “looked” feels a bit off. If you are looking at the photos with your dad next to you, then you would use present tense “look”. But if we’re imagining a scenario where Dad isn’t in the room looking at photos with you, you would say something like: “Dad looked really young in this picture.”

PS - AI's answer