How to Look Photogenic in Online Dating Photos: 6 Steps

A sexy photo is without a doubt the Holy Grail of online dating, and I’m not even close to overstating it. Regardless how sophisticated your online dating profile or how cool your byline in Tinder is, regardless how intriguing and innovative your opening message or how smooth your text game is, if you don’t have at least decent photos, you’ll be fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

On the other hand, if you do have great photos (a single great one can be enough), you can piggy-back on it and get results despite major flaws in your profile, text game, etc.

For example, when experimenting with OkCupid a couple of years ago, at one time I had a profile that said:

On A Typical Friday Night: “Cover myself in paint, confetti, and perform ancient shaman rituals while “Highway to Hell” is blasting in the background.”

Followed by a “Do NOT under any circumstances message me…”

And I would still get unsolicited messages from women. Admittedly, those weren’t the most beautiful women in the world (usually not too shabby either though), but nonetheless, it does say a lot about how powerful great photos are.

Oh, and the first time I’ve experimented with Tinder I was pretty sure that the app was broken or something, because after a ~10 – 15 minute blitz that I did while waiting for my buddy to pick me up from the train station, I had the phone buzzing the whole day from being matched with someone (and several messages too).

I’m sure at this point you’re really keen to see the photo that’s been so freakishly effective and here it is:

As you can see, statistically this photo should be a flop:

• Looking straight into the camera (in reality I was looking just above the lens).

• Smiling.

• No pets / cool activities / cropped-out women.

• Even clothes are not that impressive (other than noticeably good fit that emphasizes shoulders and color contrast to match with my natural features).

Despite that, it worked like magic. Which is to say two things:

1. A solid photographer & looking photogenic is enough to get great results from online dating.

2. My results were quite a ways from being optimal. Imagine if I knew any better then and stacked the odds further by using other strategies…