A Guide to Great Tinder Picture Tips

If you aren’t getting any matches on Tinder then you have bad pictures. You will either sink or swim by your pictures on Tinder, specifically, the quality of the pictures. You might consider yourself as an attractive man, but you will definitely fail at Tinder if you don’t have the right pictures.

You might be actually attractive, but if you have poor-quality pictures, you are doomed. The only way to remedy the situation is to put some good pictures on your profile and you will be surprised by the number of matches and interest you start getting.

If you have the right pictures on Tinder, it will be like shooting fish in a barrel. You might even get reported as a catfish because women will think that you are stealing pictures from models and using them on your own profile just like here.

The term “good pictures”, however, is rather subjective. It can actually mean so many different things. From experience, there are some elements that make up good quality pictures, which include the following:

1. Picture Quality

You can be sure that there’s a major difference between a poor-quality cell phone front camera picture and a picture that comes from a DSLR or an expensive camera. This definitely matters. Front-facing cellphone cameras usually have bad quality, bad lenses, bad apertures, and distort your face. The less grainy and clearer the picture, the better.

2. Lighting

Lighting is an important consideration. 

Pictures that are taken in the dark will always be of poor quality since they will have ISO settings, which means grainier. Pictures taken using indoor lighting, on the other hand, will often cast unnatural shadows with harsher lighting.  Pictures taken with a camera flash not only add 7 years to your face but also create all kinds of bad shadows and unappealing flashbacks.

The best lighting is outdoors. However, the major issue with outdoor photos is that, in general, the sun will be too bright, causing overexposure, too many harsh shadows, and will likely make your eyes squint. One solution would be to take pictures when it is cloudy. Alternatively, you can take pictures in the shade.

The ideal time to take outdoor pictures, which is referred to as the golden hour, is either an hour before sunset or after sunrise. You can google “Golden Hour Calculator” to find out what time exactly this is for your location. 

During the golden hour you will have the opportunity to take good pictures with soft, golden lighting and yet it isn’t bright enough to either make you squint or cast bad shadows. If you are wearing sunglasses, it does not matter the time of day that you take outdoor pictures, but you generally shouldn’t have more than one or two pictures in your Tinder photo album where you’re wearing sunglasses.

3. Setting

The location where you take your pictures is another important consideration. A computer selfie at your desk in your room will only translate to poor-quality pictures. A picture of you outdoors somewhere interesting, on the other hand, is great. 

Variety is what matters the most here. So, you can try finding unique outdoor places to go. For instance, you can consider the roof of a parking garage downtown on weekends for the perfect setting for your photos. 

The great thing about such a location is that you aren’t required to pay to get in, there’s likely nobody up there, and you get an amazing view of the city skyline in the background. Lakes, mountains, hiking trails, parks, rivers, beaches, etc. all can work. You can also be creative and get shots on streets, sidewalks, etc.

4. Pose and Posture

It is always important to make sure that your poses are natural based on the setting the picture is taken. If you take a picture on a sidewalk, for example, you obviously don’t want the pose to be as if you were specifically posing for the camera; instead, you want the pose to be as if you were walking down the sidewalk. 

You can look up modeling poses on YouTube for inspiration and ensure you have the proper posture regardless of the pose you decide to use.

5. Facial Expression

Variety is the key here. You don’t want all your photos to be of you smiling into the camera. You also don’t want all photos to be of you looking away from the camera with a serious expression and your mouth closed. That’s not how to promote your account on tinder.

Ideally, you should adopt the rule of halves. You want half of your pictures to be smiling and half not smiling. Similarly, half of your pictures should be of you looking into the camera and half looking away from the camera.

6. Composition

Your position in the frame matters a lot. You will see that many people fail at this when you check out the competition. In general, there are only two acceptable compositions: Half body shots and full body shots.

Half body shots are generally shots from either the waist or upper thigh up while full body shots have your entire body in the frame. However, that’s just half the battle – you don’t want too much open space between the top and bottom of the frame.

Use the entire frame for your full body shots not leaving too much of a gap either above your head or below your shoes. Face only shots should ideally be avoided since they simply aren’t flattering and will hide your body, which you will obviously want to show off if you’re lean, and also hides your fashion.

7. Style/Fashion

Your clothing choices matter and have the potential to greatly enhance your overall look if done right. You want your pictures to show off a wide range of well-fitting stylish clothes. Fit matters more than style. While both are very important, bad fit will ruin any style. A good style can never overcome bad fit.

Visit stores like J Crew and look for stylish clothes in the smallest size that you can find that still fits, preferably in a slim style cut. 

Excellent ideas for clothes to wear are Slim Fit Casual Button-Down Shirts, Flat Front Chino Shorts at 9-inch inseam or less, Slim Chino Pants. Bomber Jackets, Leather Jackets, Denim Jackets, Demin Button Downs, Nice Sweaters, Slim Dress Shirts, Well-Fitting T-Shirts, Polos, Watches (You should be wearing one in all your pictures), bracelets, pendants, necklaces, nice sneakers, loafers, dress shoes, and boots.

You should also generally avoid the following: Cargo Pants, Cargo Shorts. “skater” shoes, basketball shoes, tennis shoes, hoodies, sweats, hats, baggy clothes, sandals/flip flops, logo or graphic shirts. 

Hair: Ensure that you put some effort into it, whatever you decide to do. Find the right hairstyle/haircut for your face shape.

Pets: If you have a dog, you should definitely have at least one picture of him/her.

Motorcycle: If you do have one, it is perhaps a good idea to have a picture of you on your bike. 

Now you know exactly what makes a good picture. However, that’s just part of what you need to do. The next step is to implement the tips provided here so that you can have the highest probability of success on Tinder.

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