Photo Tips That Help an Inner Circle Profile Get Approved

Inner Circle's photo advice fits on a sticky note. Open with one clear, well-lit photo of just you, looking straight into the lens, and leave out hats, sunglasses and side angles. Use photos from the last six to twelve months, mix solo shots with social ones, keep every image sharp and bright, and never use a mirror selfie. Inner Circle says dark or grainy shots will not help you get approved.

You need Inner Circle's approval before you can use the app, and your first photo is where every look at your application starts. It exists to answer one question. What does this man actually look like?

Women on the app ask the same question later, and they ask it quicker. A glance at the lead photo decides whether she looks at the rest. If she has to work out which man in a group is you, or peer past a shadow to find your eyes, most women simply keep going.

None of this favors the handsome man. It favors the man who shows his face well. A plain, well-chosen photo of an ordinary face does more for him than a careless shot of a better-looking one.

Every item on the list hides some of your face.

A cap drops a shadow across your eyes and covers your hairline. Sunglasses take your eyes out of the photo altogether, and the eyes are what she looks at first. A side angle gives her half a face and asks her to guess the rest. A mirror selfie shows a phone where your face should be, usually in front of a bathroom sink, and it quietly says there was no one around to take the photo.

Inner Circle treats the mirror selfie as a flat no, so leave it out of the set completely. Keep the other three out of your first photo. If one turns up lower down, make sure your face is clear in every other shot.

Inner Circle wants photos from the last six to twelve months. That helps with approval, but the real payoff comes later, at a table in a bar.

If your photos are five years and one hairline old, she arrives expecting a different man. Nobody says anything, but the first part of the evening goes on adjusting to the gap. When she spots you the second she walks in, the date begins on your side instead.

Do not hold off until you are in better shape or have a better haircut. Photograph the man you are this month, and swap photos out as that man changes.

Inner Circle recommends both, and each one tells her something the other cannot.

A solo photo shows your face and your build with nothing competing for attention. A social photo shows that people like having you around: a long dinner with friends, a wedding, the Sunday basketball game you never miss. A set of only solo shots can suggest a man with an empty weekend. A set of mostly group shots makes her search for you.

Put a solo photo first and bring the social ones in lower down. In every group shot, you should be the first person she notices. If a friend steals the frame, crop him out or drop the photo.

Once the basics are covered, one photo can do a different job. Pick something that invites a question, like you with a dog, a half-restored motorbike or a kitchen covered in flour. The photo that gets the most response is often not your best-looking one. It is the one that hands her something easy to ask about.

Inner Circle says poor lighting and grainy images will not help you get approved. It is the simplest tip on the list and the one men break most often.

Natural light solves most of it. Face a window, or step outside in the morning or late afternoon, and ask a friend to take the photo on a good phone. A relaxed phone photo usually beats a stiff studio portrait, because it looks like a moment from your life rather than a session you paid for.

Be careful with crops. A face cut out of an old group photo and enlarged turns soft and grainy, and a soft photo looks like an old one. If you need to zoom in to find yourself, the photo is not good enough to use.

Your photos make claims about your life. The bio sitting beside them either confirms those claims or undercuts them.

Photos of hiking trips, dinners and a rowing club sit well next to a bio that mentions the outdoors and the friends you cook for. A bio that describes a life the photos never show looks invented. Photos that show nothing the bio mentions look random.

Before you write anything, ask yourself one question. What is the most attractive thing about your life that is also true? Build the photos and the words around that one answer.

Look at the set the way a stranger would. Is the first photo only you, facing the lens, in good light? Is every photo from the last six to twelve months? Do solo and social shots both appear, and are you easy to find in each? Is anything dark, grainy, heavily cropped or shot in a mirror?

Then hand your phone to a friend who will not flatter you and ask which photo should go. Take it out.

Getting approved is only the entrance. Every woman who comes across you on Inner Circle judges these same photos first, so the care you put in now keeps paying off long after the review is over.