What a Good Profile Photo Actually Does

People agonise over their profile photo as though it were a passport application. Here is the whole job of a profile photo: it lets a stranger imagine sitting across a table from you. That is it. Everything else follows from that.

Show your face, clearly, in reasonable light. Daylight near a window is better than any filter. If a friend can take it, have them stand a couple of steps back and take ten; one will be good. A sunglasses photo, a group photo, a photo from two hundred metres away on a mountain: these are all pictures in which the viewer cannot see you, and they will scroll past.

Look like yourself on a good day, not like someone else on their best day. A photo taken three years and fifteen kilos ago is not a lie exactly, but the first meeting will begin with a small disappointment, and small disappointments are heavy to carry into a conversation. Recent, real, and rested wins every time.

Smile if you smile. Do not if you do not. A forced grin reads as forced. A calm, friendly face reads as calm and friendly, which is what most people are hoping to find.

One photo of you doing something you actually do is worth more than four selfies. At a family party, at the gym, at the market, holding a fish you caught, sitting on a church step. It gives the other person a sentence to open with, and openers are hard.

Leave out the cars, the cash, and the weapons. Leave out children who are not yours to publish. Leave out ex-partners cropped at the shoulder; everyone can tell.

If you would rather not show your face publicly, that is your right. Just know that a profile without a face gets far fewer replies, because people are wary of what they cannot see. You can keep your face for the people you choose to talk to and send it in the conversation instead. Some members do exactly that, and it works, because by then there is trust.

Every photo on this site goes through an automated screening check before it appears. The rest is up to you.