You want to do online dating, but you’ve spent most of your time hiding from cameras. You’re camera-shy. I am too.
In fact, that picture is me, avoiding the shutterbug StupidRanger at GenCon 2009.
So when you NEED pictures for your online dating profile, but you HATE being in front of a camera, what can you do?
Hire a Friend
You can pay a professional to snap photos of you, but if you’re camera shy, they might come out with that awkward, forced, “I’m smiling now for the camera” smile. Those don’t look good. You might get a few that are salvageable, but if you’re a real camera-phobe, it’ll be tough.
Get a friend who you trust not to make fun of you. Put a semi-decent digital camera in their hands. Then you’re ready for step two.
Pick An Activity
Go out and DO SOMETHING – playing D&D, jamming on Rock Band, jazzing it up with your saxophone, tossing a ball with your dog. The important thing is that it’s an activity you can do for a while that will demand most of your attention.
Feel free to use multiple activities on multiple days with different outfits. (The outfits thing is pretty important – it’s always a little weird when someone’s photos are all the same clothes…)
Have Fun!
Have a blast doing whatever it is that you do. Pay no attention to the friend with the camera. Just do what you’re doing and put all your focus on that. Out of 100 pictures, you’ll probably get 2-5 that are AWESOME, 10-50 that are meh, and the other half that are either awful or hilarious. But all you need for a great set of online dating photos are those 2-5 awesome ones!
I leave you with a pretty funny picture – me laughing my ass off at something that happened during Out of the Box Roleplaying at GenCon 2009. It’s most likely the fault of Bartoneus. Photography by the beautiful and Fit4GenCon StupidRanger.
About e
Candid shots are always the best. They’re always genuine.
Now that looks you were having fun.
I got my standard profile picture from a webcam photo of me trying to show a friend of mine a very large spider mini that I just got. The photo of course was suppose to be about the mini and not me (since I lacked a camera on me at the time I figured I would just use my built in webcam).
Although I must admit I think E’s ratio of how many good photos you will get out a 100 sounds about right. (This must be why photographers take 2 to 3 of standard shots for a wedding party) o.O
My problem is that there is no activity distracting enough to stop me from noticing a camera pointed my way. My photo-dodging skills are nigh-legendary and completely reflexive, so with… one? two? exceptions it’s posed or nothing.
It’s difficult, because dating is all about being the one who gets noticed and being me is all about avoiding notice wherever possible. Not really sure how to resolve that one. =/
.-= potatocubed´s last blog .. =-.
Are you wearing a self-promotional t-shirt? Great idea! What’s on the back?
oh gosh, buncha stuff, including the URL. Got new ones printed up for this year with different text.