By Joshua Pompey
What is the visual story?
Your visual story is the overall story you tell about yourself through the pictures you post in your profile. The better the story, the more attractive you will appear to others. It’s that simple.
A great visual story should be looked at as a greatest hits of your life. You want to reveal all the best aspects of your personality, as well as your hobbies, interests, and how y0u spend your free time.
Last, but certainly not least, you want to display how you look when you are at your best.
The most important rule to remember: You are only as attractive as your worst picture
The idea is to reveal as many great qualities as you can about yourself in each picture you post while still maintaining an attractive appearance. The more positive qualities you reveal, the more quality men you will attract.
Below are several types of online dating profile pictures that tend to work best. You probably won’t use all of these, but the more you use, the better off you will be.
The your best self photo
This photo is a must have for any successful profile. Men are very visual beings and place a ton of emphasis on physical attraction. So showing what you look like at your absolute best will go a long way towards peaking their interest.
This could be a picture taken alone (selfie), a night out with your friends, a photo with a professional photographer, or a special event you went to. It doesn’t matter where it was taken, as long as your hair and makeup are done, your outfit is stylish, and you look like you have it going on.
Smiling into the camera
Often times this will be the same picture as the your best self photo, but if it’s not, you will need one picture where you are smiling into the camera.
If you can teach yourself to flirt with the camera a little bit by smiling with your eyes as well, even better. Statistics show that women who smile into the camera receive a much higher percentage of contacts.
Pictures with friends
I’ve been asked countless times if friends should be included in a profile. The answer is absolutely!
This shows that you have a fun life and other people enjoy spending time with you. If other people like being around you that means you must have some likable qualities right? Don’t put your friends in every picture, but one or two definitely goes a long way.
Showing that you can hang with the boys once in a while
You know what guys really love? When they see a profile picture of a woman at a sporting event or doing something that they do with their guy friends.
We don’t want you to replace our male friends. Nor do we want you belching and doing gross things guys do.
But it’s so awesome to know that you are willing to do fun things once in a while that our guy friends might not always be around for. Don’t underestimate the value of this photo.
Active pictures
Examples of this include running, skiing, walking in the park, etc. Anything that shows you care about your health and like to get off the couch is attractive to a large percentage of men.
And if you are a few pounds heavier than you’d like to be or exercise isn’t your thing, don’t stress it. These types of pictures are not a requirement, as there are shapes and sizes for all men.
Vacation and travel pictures
The underling message of the travel picture is that you are not content to just sit on the couch and let life pass you by. It shows that you enjoy creating new experiences and that life with you will be filled with fun new adventures down the road. And of course the obvious, most people love to travel!
Anything that shows a sense of adventure
While you may not be on the adventurous side, if you have something that falls into this category, even if it’s only mildly adventurous, such as skiing or traveling, use it.
Similar to what we discussed in the vacation and travel blurb above, this shows that life with you will be filled with fun new experiences.
To further drive home the value of these pictures, men sometimes fear that commitment to one woman will eventually grow boring and repetitive. Adventure pictures communicate that life with you will never get stale.
Animal pictures
Don’t like dogs? Ah well. But if you do? These tend to be great conversation starters and commonality builders.
The passion picture
What are you passionate about? Is it dogs? Is it volunteering? Is it sailing?
If you can post a picture of your biggest passion(s) you are going to reveal a whole lot about what it’s like to date you and may even get someone excited to learn more about your passions.
Trying new things
In the last 6 months I took a pottery class (which I was awful at), went to a painting and wine class (even more awful at), and took a welding class (the winner of most awful at).
But they were all a blast and also show that I’m open-minded and like to try new things. If you have anything new you’ve tried recently that looks interesting, include it in your profile pictures.
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Suppose you have some really great pictures, would love to use them, but you can’t see your face in them.
Maybe you went sky-diving but your helmet and goggles block out your face. Or maybe you were on a mountain in a beautiful photo but your back is to the camera.
Use these pictures. It’s okay to use pictures that don’t show your face if they reveal great personality traits or aspects of your life, as long as you have a handful of other pictures that clearly show your face.
Don’t include more than 3 of these at most.
I won’t bore you with a long explanation for each of the bullet points listed below, but the following pictures need to be avoided. They either fail to ignite interest, accidentally send red flags, or just aren’t attractive looks.
Often times when I read what other experts have to say on this topic I hear arbitrary numbers such as 4 pictures, or, no more than 6. Their logic is usually that you should leave a little mystery to your audience.
But is this really all that logical? I hate throwing out a number for the sake of throwing out a number.
Each picture is an incredible opportunity to reveal different likable qualities about yourself. So if you have 10 great pictures, why not show 10? If you have 12, show 12! This can’t hurt and can only help.
Of course there are limits. This isn’t Facebook or Instagram. But don’t be afraid to post more than 8 pictures.
On the other hand, if you only have 5 great pictures, don’t force yourself into posting mediocre or unflattering photos in order to hit an arbitrary number.
Remember the rule of thumb from the beginning of this article; you are only as attractive as your worst picture. 5 perfect pictures is better than 5 perfect pictures and 2 average pictures.
Maybe you have plenty of pictures to choose from. Perhaps you have none. Or perhaps you fall somewhere in the middle.
The question is, if you need more photos, how should you set about the process?
Should you hire a professional photographer?
While this isn’t a necessity, if you have a little extra money to spend, it can definitely be a tremendous help. A professional photographer is a professional for a reason. They know how to make the most of what they are working with which can make a tremendous difference to your appearance.
With that said, you don’t want your entire photo album to look rehearsed or feel like a wedding album. Make sure you balance the professional looking pictures with pictures that fall into all the categories mentioned earlier in this article (adventure, travel, with friends, etc.)
A professional photographer should mainly be used for that “best self picture” or to help capture you doing things you enjoy doing if you don’t have many pictures of yourself.
Don’t limit the photographer to stand alone pictures
Going back to part 2 of this tutorial, there are a whole variety of pictures you want to obtain. Don’t be afraid to have your photographer follow you around your city or town a bit to get all the different types of pictures you need.
Photographers you need to avoid
Be sure to do your research before hiring anyone and avoid companies that use business-like backdrops and settings. You don’t want your photos looking like a photo shoot for LinkedIn.
Avoid cheesy looking headshots or blank backgrounds. Your pictures should be taken in fun settings or places with natural looking backdrops.
What if I don’t have pictures and don’t want to use a photographer?
Family and friends are the next best option. Have them follow you around for a day and work their magic.
Don’t forget to change outfits
This should be obvious, but if you are taking different types of photos on the same day, make sure you change between pictures and choose clothes suited for the context of the photos you are taking.
Style
You are what you wear. Dress in a manner that is suitable for the photos you are taking, wear clothes that are flattering to your body type, and avoid clothing that is overly sexual.
As a rule of thumb, showing a little leg or cleavage is fine, but showing both in the same picture is too much.
Makeup and hair
I highly recommend getting your hair and makeup done prior to taking photos. Over the years I’ve worked with so many clients who took this extra step and the results versus those who didn’t were night and day.
If you are already investing so much time and energy into your photos, spending an extra hundred dollars or so to really knock it out of the ballpark is a worthy investment that could potentially help land you a lifetime of happiness.
At the end of the day, getting together the perfect online dating profile pictures might require a bit of hard work, and may possibly even require a small financial investment.
But don’t forget that this is a task with an end goal that is arguably the most important aspect of your entire life; finding long lasting happiness and love.
Every little effort, no matter how small, will make a big difference in the grand scheme of things and get you one step closer to finding the happiness you deserve.
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