How many photos should a dating profile have?

Between four and six. Every photo past that can only lower the average, and the average is what gets judged. One clear face shot, one full body, one of you doing something, one with other people, one with a real background.

Are selfies bad for dating profiles?

Not immoral, just geometrically unflattering. At arm's length a phone lens enlarges whatever is closest to it, usually your nose, and shrinks your ears. Two metres away with someone else holding the phone fixes it. One selfie in a set is fine; a set of nothing but selfies is the problem.

What is the best time of day to take profile photos?

The hour before sunset. The light comes in low and sideways instead of straight down, which is what makes indoor ceiling light so unforgiving on faces.

Should I use a professional photographer?

Usually not for a dating profile. A visibly professional photo reads as staged, and the polish makes the gap between the photo and the person larger, not smaller. Save the photographer for LinkedIn.

How to Take Dating Profile Pictures (Without a Photographer)

Most advice on this starts with equipment. It shouldn't. The phone in your pocket out-resolves the cameras every dating profile you envy was shot on. What separates a good profile photo from a bad one is light, distance, and who is holding the camera — and all three are free.

Here is the whole process.

1. Go outside, an hour before sunset

Indoor ceiling light comes from directly above. It drops your eyes into shadow, flattens your nose and adds ten years, which is why almost every indoor selfie looks slightly wrong without anyone being able to say why.

Outdoor light in the last hour before sunset comes in sideways and low. It is the single largest improvement available to you, and it costs a walk.

If you must shoot indoors, stand facing a window and put the camera between you and the glass. Never with the window behind you.

2. Hand the phone to someone

The most reliable tell of a dating profile that isn't working is that every photo was taken at arm's length. A selfie fixes the distance at about 50cm, and at 50cm a phone lens enlarges whatever is nearest — usually your nose — and shrinks your ears. It is not vanity that makes selfies unflattering. It is geometry.

Ask a friend. Two metres away, phone held at your chest height, not above your head. If nobody is available, prop the phone somewhere and use the timer. Anything but arm's length.

3. Do something while it happens

The instruction "smile at the camera" produces the face everyone makes when told to smile at a camera, and everyone recognises it.

Instead, be mid-something. Walking and turning back. Ordering coffee. Talking to whoever is holding the phone. Ask them to take twenty frames while you talk instead of one while you pose. Two or three of the twenty will look like you on a good day, which is the target — not better than you, you.

4. Get these five shots

A profile is a set, not a photo. Aim for:

A clear face. Head and shoulders, eyes visible, no sunglasses, no hat. This is the one that decides whether anyone sees the rest.
A full body. Standing, whole frame. Leaving it out reads as hiding something, and everyone knows it.
You doing your thing. Cooking, climbing, playing, building. Whatever you would actually be doing on a Saturday.
You with other people. Not a group of eight where nobody knows which one is you — two or three, with you clearly the subject.
Somewhere with a background. A market, a coastline, a street. Something to ask about.

5. Cut ruthlessly

Six photos is plenty. Every additional photo can only lower the average, and the average is what gets judged.

Drop anything with a filter. Drop the mirror selfie. Drop the one where you look great but nobody would recognise you from it — that one costs you at the table, not on the app.

What if the photos don't exist?

The honest problem with all of the above is that it needs a free evening, decent weather, and a friend who will take twenty frames without getting bored.

That gap is what CMeIn exists for: two ordinary phone photos of your face in, candid photos of you in real places out — the same standard this article describes, minus the evening. It is not a substitute for a real photo of a real moment. It is a substitute for having no photos at all, which is the situation most profiles are actually in.