What Are the Dos and Don'ts of Dating App Photos?

Do put one clear, recent photo of your face first, and let every other photo show a different side of your life. Don't lead with a group shot, a mirror selfie, sunglasses or a dim bar. A good set reads like one man living a normal week. A bad one reads like five pictures from the same night. The photos carry more of a dating profile than anything you write under them.

Her decision on your first photo is quick, and the rest of your page is only read if that photo earns it. So the first slot gets a clear shot of your face, alone, in daylight, with a small real smile.

a dating coach's first fix for a man who gets no response is his photos. He says it is less about your face than about how you look in a photo, and that good light, good clothes and a good angle make up for a lot.

A woman looking at your photos is guessing at an ordinary week with you. Give her more than one answer. One photo with friends, one doing something you do, one somewhere you go, one in clothes you would wear to a dinner.

Different outfits and different places also tell her the photos came from different days, which makes them easier to believe. Five photos from one afternoon read as one afternoon, however good each one is.

a dating coach's most commented photo is not his best-looking one. It is a photo of him with a bed covered in foreign money, and it gets him messages because women ask what is going on. He calls it a curiosity photo, and he says it makes his conversations start at speed instead of from nothing.

Yours should come from your own life, not a copy of his. An unusual place, an odd job, a picture with a story behind it. Most men have one, and it is usually sitting in their camera roll. A hobby shot is not the same thing. You skiing is pleasant, but it does not make her curious.

Photos and words are read together, so they should tell the same story. a dating coach went through the page of a man whose photos showed him in ordinary rooms and whose bio said he was a gentleman who would be good to her. A ton of men write that, he pointed out, and the prompt answers were bare facts about tacos and the pyramids, which told her nothing about what dating him would be like.

If your photos show a man who cooks, hikes and has friends, let a line of your bio and one prompt answer say the same thing in your own words. When the two agree, she believes both.

A group shot in the lead slot makes her hunt for you, and she rarely does. a dating coach looked at one on a viewer's page and could not work out who the man was or why it was there. Put a group picture in fourth place, and make sure she can find you in it.

The bigger problem he sees is not bad photos but boring ones. Picture a man in a t-shirt in an ordinary room with a bad couch behind him, and nothing about the place or the clothes that stands out. A woman swipes past out of boredom, not dislike. Move the shot outside, or somewhere with some life in it.

a dating coach says captioning photos is overdone by a lot of men and can look try-hard. He captions one, the money photo, because the caption does a job. If a caption does not give her something to ask about, leave it off.

Old photos, heavy edits and a favorite from five years ago all lead to the same moment: she meets you and you are not the man in the pictures. Use recent ones, and remove any that you would need to explain.

a dating coach's rule is simple. Put a photo in, see whether it works, and if it does not, swap it for something else. One change per week, with a count of how many women liked you, tells you what is helping. Men who try a few swaps and still get nothing usually need someone else to look at the whole set.