The League's Photo Rules for Profiles

The League's guidelines say your face must be clearly visible in every photo, and that you should upload only your own photos. They ban shirtless or underwear mirror selfies, photos of you in underwear, watermarks or text laid over the image, and graphic hunting photos. Photos of children are allowed only when an adult is in the photo too and the child is fully clothed.

Note the word "every." Your face has to be clearly visible in all of your photos, not just the first one.

That rules out a lot of photos men like. The shot of you from behind looking at a mountain. The one where you are a small figure on a beach. The ski photo with goggles and a helmet. Each of those might be a nice memory, but none of them shows your face, so none of them belongs on The League.

It is a sensible rule even apart from the guidelines. A woman looking at your photos is trying to work out what you look like. Every photo that hides your face is a photo that does not help her do that.

The League asks you to upload only your own photos. Every photo should be of you.

In practice that means no memes, no screenshots, and no photos of a friend or someone famous standing in for you. The face rule above already takes care of the sunset and the car parked on its own. The League's members review new applications partly to screen out fake accounts. A set with even one photo that is clearly not you is the kind of thing that makes a reviewer wonder.

The guidelines ban shirtless or underwear mirror selfies outright, and they ban photos of you in your underwear too.

That rule costs you less than it seems. a dating coach's advice on dating photos is to get rid of the mirror selfie anyway, because it looks like nobody was around to take the picture. If you want to show you are in shape, a full-length photo in a fitted shirt makes the point without the bathroom. So does a photo of you actually playing the sport you train for.

Watermarks and text laid over the image are both out.

This catches men out in two ways. The first is a photographer's logo in the corner of a professional shot, which you need to get a clean copy of. The second is text or stickers added in an editing app, such as captions or emojis. If a photo only works with words written on it, it is not doing its job. Your written words belong in your About Me.

Graphic hunting photos are banned. If hunting is a real part of your life, you can still show the outdoors. Use a photo of you on the trail or at camp, and leave the animal out of it. Mention hunting in your About Me if it matters to you.

Photos of children are allowed only when an adult is in the photo and the child is fully clothed. A photo of you with a nephew at a birthday party fits that rule. It still raises a question she will want answered, which is whether the child is yours. If you use one, make sure the rest of your page answers that question without her having to ask.

Take the rules together and they point at a very ordinary set: clear, recent photos of you, fully dressed, doing things you actually do.

That is also what works. A clear headshot to lead with. A full-length photo. A couple of you doing something you enjoy. One with friends where you are easy to find. The League also recommends six photos rather than its three-photo minimum, so aim to fill all six with photos that follow the rules without trying. If you are short, one afternoon out with a friend and a phone will usually fill the gap.

The rules push a lot of things out of your photos: hobbies you cannot show, the story behind the hunting trip, the joke you wanted to caption. Your bio is where all of that goes.

The League counts a complete About Me as one of the things that give you the best chance of being drafted. Use it for the parts of your life a photo cannot carry, in a few specific lines. The photos show her what you look like. The About Me section tells her what a Saturday with you would be like.