While TechCrunch has their own conclusions about OKCupid’s latest blast of internet dating metadata, we read the rest of the post and found a few interesting, but not entirely unexpected, tendencies. It seems that the camera-savvy among us are, shall we say, getting their sensors cleaned a bit more frequently.
Of course we all have our good photos and our bad photos. But what goes into a good or bad photo was something OKCupid wanted to know. Is it the angle? The content? The light? The hair? As it turns out, there’s a lot of correlation with camera quality, flash quality, and exposure type.
You can read the whole post if you want to hear about their methods and so on, but I’m just going to break it down to a few bullet points, because I love you guys:
- Use a decent camera, preferably a DSLR. Of course it’s not absolutely necessary, but you get better fidelity, better exposure control, and better focus. If you have a friend with a DSLR, buy him or her dinner and ask for a few glamour shots. Try lots of things! You never know what might make you look good: close-up, black and white, grain, shallow depth of field… it’s up to you. Really, just use anything but a cell phone camera.
- Try not to use a flash, or if you do, bounce it. Direct flash pictures (i.e. 90% of photos taken at clubs and bars with point and shoots) look terrible. Makeup and blemishes show, skin tone is washed out, eyes look unnatural, etc etc. If there’s a flash, stick some tape on it, or point it towards the ceiling.
- Take pictures in good light. Warm, diffuse light makes everyone look better. I like natural light because it’s natural and free, but if your friend has a sweet lighting setup, feel free to do that too. Just avoid one-sided light and lighting from below. Just before sunset, or “magic hour” is the best time for pretty much everything.
And remember: Friends don’t let friends do duck face.