Online Dating Profile Photo Tips
Here is the situation most people over 60 are in. The only recent pictures of you were taken at somebody else's birthday, from below, in a dim restaurant, and there are four other people in the frame. Meanwhile the photo is carrying more weight than anything you write, because people look at it before they read a word, and a profile with a photo gets far more interest than one without.
Fixing it is a twenty minute job and you already own the equipment. The phone in your pocket takes better pictures than the professional gear of thirty years ago. Five things, in the order they matter.
1. Say Cheese!
Biggest lever, costs nothing. Smiling photos get roughly twice the messages that unsmiling ones do. The problem is that most of us have exactly one camera face, learned at the DMV, and what it communicates is "how much longer." Hold a smile on purpose for four seconds and it curdles into a grimace, which is why so many decent photos look strained. The fix is timing rather than effort. Have whoever is holding the phone say something ridiculous, then take the shot in the second right after you laugh, not during. That is the one that looks like you.
2. Location, Location, Location
Light does most of the work, and the good stuff is free. Sit facing a window in daylight and you get soft, even light hitting you from the front, which flatters everybody. What to avoid: the ceiling fixture after dark, which drops shadows straight into your eye sockets, and the bathroom mirror, which has never improved a single human being. Outdoors, go early morning or late afternoon rather than noon. Anywhere pleasant works and doubles as a conversation starter: the porch, the yard, a park, the lake, the trail, fall color if you have it. And take ten seconds to look at what is behind you, so you are not broadcasting your house number or your plate.
3. Composition
Two mechanical fixes. Center yourself in the frame, because dating sites crop photos automatically to fit different spots on the page and they always crop from the edges, so anybody off to one side loses part of their head. Head and shoulders, or head to waist, with some room around you. Then raise the camera: hold the phone a little above eye level and look up at it slightly. Shot from below, everyone acquires a chin they do not have in real life. Every teenager in America figured this out years ago and there is no reason they should keep it to themselves.
4. "Which one is you?"
Your favorite picture is probably the one with four other people in it, because that is when your face is doing something honest. Use it, but further down the gallery. A stranger scrolling past should not have to solve a puzzle, and "sorry, are you the one on the right?" is a weak opening message. Leave out anything with an ex in it, and with a late husband or wife as well. That is not about hiding your life. It is that a photograph carries none of the context, and you would rather tell somebody about that yourself, at a moment you pick.
5. The Professional Job
We see more properly shot photos on the site than we used to, and they look good. They are also not always as expensive as people assume, especially with somebody working out of a home studio rather than a chain in the mall. One member found a way around paying at all. He told his son the family had not had portraits done in fifteen years and it was getting to be embarrassing. The family got their pictures, he got a headshot out of it, and the bill went to somebody else. If that is not on the table, ask a grandchild. They have been photographing themselves since grade school and will take real pleasure in telling you what you are doing wrong.
Look who else just joined
