How to get the most out of a dating photographer
So you've decided to start online dating, and the only pictures of yourself on your phone are of you holding a dead fish.
So you've decided to start online dating, and the only pictures of yourself on your phone are of you holding a dead fish. You've heard that women don't like fish pics for some reason, so you've made a wise decision to pay money to a photographer in exchange for some photos. Nothing beats a paid professional, right?
My first piece of advice is: let skilled friends take your photos instead. You might know that obnoxious person in your circle of friends who insists on taking their bulky DSLR or sleek film camera on every social gathering. Believe it or not, they're your greatest asset now, here's why:
Professional photographers are good at taking photos that you want, but you might be wrong about what you want. You might choose a wrong person for the job, or make suboptimal requests.
You will look more relaxed and natural when you're with your friends. Posing in front of a stranger will make you look nervous.
Sharing photos among friends provides an instant feedback mechanism – if you happen to look particularly good on some party photo, your friends will tell you.
Good photos happen when you're doing hobbies and activities. Getting a random photographer to accompany you on your rock climbing trip might not be the best idea.
Friends are free and you can spend more time with them! But still, pay them back with favors.
But let's say you're a Silicon Valley coder with no photography-minded friends and the last time you've seen a camera was when your team was making headshots for the corporate website. You can't just crash a wedding to get into some shots, so what should you do?
Find a photographer online
You may be tempted to just google a photographer, but be aware that the first ones that pop on search engines tend to be fashion and event photographers who have SEO-optimized sites and offer expensive studio and event shootings. They might take great portraits for you, but, as my models recently told me, many women find overly "professional" photos too artificial and cocky – especially if it doesn't really fit your personality.
Instead, I recommend checking your local Instagram. Go over to the magnifying glass icon on the bottom menu, and type #citynamephotgrapher in the search bar. You will see a wall of photos taken by amateur photographers in Cityname. Scroll until you see the picture of a good-looking man, and check the photographer's profile.
You may ask: but I'm not a good-looking man, maybe I should go to a photographer who takes photos of average guys like me?
To which I respond: If the photographer is skilled, all the average men will appear to be good-looking on their photos.
Message the photographer and ask for the price
Pick the photo in the photographer's profile that you like the most, and message the photographer asking how much would it cost to make photos like this one. You might lack a good grasp on whether a photographer is good or not – in this case you should show the portfolio to your female friends, or, since we're talking about Silicon Valley coders here, online friends who have dating experience. Ask your friends if they like the style of the photographer, and whether the photos would be suitable for a dating profile.
Arrange the shoot
Choose the style and concept for the photoshoot. In the order of reliability, you could pick one of your photographer's photos as a template, show the photographer other good photos you found online (I recommend, dare I say it, Pinterest), or just describe your idea verbally.
Confirm a time and location for meeting. Follow the suggestions of your photographer, but if you have to choose, sunrise and sunset are great times for photoshoots, and bright daylight and dark night are the most challenging conditions. Cloudy and rainy weather is actually not that bad, especially for a certain moody desaturated style.
Tell the photographer that you want to have 2-3 photos with different backgrounds and clothing in vertical orientation. You could plan to shoot one in an indoor setting (I recommend to shoot by the window), one at the sunset, and one at the dusk, all within the same evening. This makes it look like you shot your dating photos on different days like regular people presumably do.
Bring multiple outfits
Don't just show up in your home pants and t-shirt – get an outfit you'd actually wear on a date! This is a good opportunity to invite your female friends or fashionable male friends on a shopping run, or ask them to send you some good clothing items from online shops. Speaking about online shops, did you know that you could order clothes online, wear them for a photoshoot, then send them back and get a full refund? Enjoy the dress-up game, just don't think twice about underwear you ordered a while back.
Don't be intimidated by the photographer
On the photoshoot, the photographer will ask you to move in a certain way, or strike a pose. If you're inexperienced with modeling, it's totally normal to feel weird and confused doing this. Unfortunately, this feeling of weirdness is very much visible to anyone who looks at the photo.
Best thing you can bring on the photoshoot is playful mood. Experiment, try things, imitate your favorite characters. Put some music to lighten up the vibe. Get ready that the photographer might tell you a joke, or ask you to do some mental math. This is done to change the emotions on your face in a natural way. Follow what the photographer tells you to do, but don't be too rigid, do some slight variations within the same pose. You don't want a hundred photos that look absolutely identical, right?
Ask to see the whole gallery if possible
After the shoot, some photographers will be hesitant to send you unedited photos, but some will share the whole gallery with you so you could pick which photos you want to be edited. If the photographer sends you the whole archive, you will see many terrible photos – that's normal. You don't need to maximize the number of good photos, you need to maximize the attractiveness of the top 3 photos. If making 3 great photos requires playing around, experimenting and taking hundreds of terrible shots, so be it.
To narrow down which photo you should get edited and use on your dating profile, I recommend photofeeler. Upload your photos and get them rated by women, and rate other women's photos in turn. This may take a while, so it's better to pre-select photos using the feedback of your friends.
On editing
Dating photos serve the purpose of accurately portraying yourself to your potential partner. And naturally it's very common to embellish the appearance in an effort to attract more partners.
Rules of ethics in photography editing vary with a genre. Photojournalists has very strict ethical guidelines against photomanipulation. Portrait photographers remove temporary blemishes but often keep permanent features such as moles intact. Glamour photographers value beauty over accuracy and change every aspect of the person including width or height.
What about dating photos? They are not a separate genre as such, people upload all kinds of photos to their dating profiles: from random selfies to commercial photoshoots. So there's no clear line telling you what you can and can't do. Best I can offer is a rough spectrum with removed clothing wrinkles, stains and stray hairs on one end of acceptability, skin blemish removal, eye and teeth brightening somewhere in the middle, and teeth coloring, acne removal and body size changes on another end. All of these are common to see on dating photos. Do what you're comfortable with, and if you find that you get plenty of first dates, but no second dates, you have to consider that maybe your dating photos don't give an accurate impression of yourself.
That's it, it's that simple! Now go find a good photographer, and feel free to ask me any questions in the comments.