diff --git a/app/components/About.tsx b/app/components/About.tsx
index b32aa3d..cc0fca4 100644
--- a/app/components/About.tsx
+++ b/app/components/About.tsx
@@ -99,14 +99,18 @@ export function About() {
           src="/about-author.jpg"
           fill
           sizes="(min-width: 640px) 58vw, 100vw"
-          // object-position shifted up from center — about-author.jpg is a
-          // square close-up portrait (1254x1254), and this banner is wide
-          // and comparatively short, so a centered crop on a square source
-          // blows the face up to fill the whole strip (reported 2026-08-29,
-          // after the photo swap to this tighter headshot). Biasing toward
-          // the top keeps hairline/forehead in frame instead of cropping
-          // straight into eyes-to-chin.
-          className="object-cover object-[50%_20%] pointer-events-none"
+          // object-contain, not object-cover — about-author.jpg is a square
+          // close-up portrait (1254x1254) and this banner is wide and
+          // comparatively short, so object-cover scales the square up to
+          // fill the width and then crops most of the height away: the
+          // face fills the entire strip, way too large (reported
+          // 2026-08-29; simulated the exact crop with sharp to confirm
+          // before switching — a plain object-position tweak only moves
+          // which part of the face is blown up, it doesn't fix the zoom
+          // itself). contain shows the whole photo at its real proportions;
+          // the empty sides fall back to the section's own bg-dark behind
+          // the image, which reads as a deliberate frame rather than a gap.
+          className="object-contain pointer-events-none"
         />
         {/* Left gradient — from sm: up, not just lg:. Even without the
             -ml-48 overlap at Tablet, the photo sits directly against the