Online Dating Profile Photo Tips

Your photo does more work than anything else on your profile. People look at it before they've read a single word you've written, and a profile with a photo is likely to get around 90% more interest than one without. The good news is that a decent one takes about five minutes, and the camera in your pocket is better than anything the professionals had thirty years ago. Here's how to get one you don't mind other people seeing.

1. Say Cheese!

Smile. That's the whole tip, and it's the one that makes the biggest difference, with smiling photos likely to get around twice as many messages as unsmiling ones. A lot of us default to the face we use for licence renewals at the motor registry, which is a look that says "get this over with" rather than "I'd be good company on a Sunday". Nobody is scrolling through hoping to find somebody who looks fed up. If you can't smile on cue, and plenty of us can't, get whoever's holding the camera to say something daft right before they press the button. The half second after a laugh is where the good photo lives.

2. Location, Location, Location

Get out of the dark spare room and into the light. A well lit photo somewhere pleasant beats a gloomy one every time, and it gives people something to ask you about. Some of our members have set the bar high with shots from boats, planes and beaches with palm trees in them. The rest of us don't need to book a flight. The back deck, the garden, the local beach, the botanic gardens, the verandah with a cuppa. Any of it works. If you're stuck indoors, sit facing a window in daylight, because soft light coming at you from the front is the most flattering light there is and it's free. What you want to avoid is the overhead bulb at nine at night, which puts shadows in all the wrong places, and the bathroom mirror selfie, which nobody has ever been improved by.

3. Composition

Put yourself in the middle of the frame. Dating sites crop photos automatically to fit different parts of the page, and the crop always comes off the edges, so anybody lurking in a corner risks losing an ear. Head and shoulders, or head to waist, with a bit of room around you. One more thing worth knowing: hold the camera slightly above eye level and look up at it a touch. Shooting from below is how you end up with three chins you didn't know you had. Every teenager on earth worked this out years ago, and there's no reason to let them keep it to themselves.

4. "Which one is you?"

Your favourite photo is probably one with other people in it, because that's when we're at our most relaxed. The trouble is that a stranger has no idea which one you are, and "sorry, are you the bloke on the left in the sunnies?" is not the message you were hoping for. Save the group shots for later in your gallery. It's also worth leaving out photos with an ex, and with a late partner too. That's not about pretending your life didn't happen. It's simply a lot to hand somebody in the first three seconds, before you've had the chance to tell them about it yourself.

5. The Professional Job

We've noticed more properly shot photos turning up on the site, taken by an actual photographer either in a studio or at home. They do look good, and they're not always as dear as you'd expect. One of our members found a cannier way round the cost. He suggested to his son that the family really ought to get some proper photos done together, seeing as it had been years. The family got their portraits, he got his profile picture, and he didn't pay a cent. Two birds, one stone. If a photographer isn't on the cards, ask a grandkid. They've been taking photos of themselves since they could hold a phone, and they'll be delighted to tell you what you're doing wrong.

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