Photography 101 - tips here

Not necessarily a tip, but a solution to the lack of photographer/selfie issue. Amazon, as well as other sources have tripod/blue tooth remote/phone adapter sets for very reasonable prices. The weather is supposed to be nice for the first time in a while, so S and I plan on putting ours to good use.

No one else has any tips to share?

bump

I regret that I had to post it in so many pieces to get over the character-count limitations of the site, but I'm glad you like it. Thank you for your additions!

EKSerrb, These are GREAT tips. Thank you SO MUCH!!

Here are some of mine. Some of these are mistakes I made with my profile pictures. Some are based on things I've learned about SLS's system specifically. Some of them I stole wholesale from wiser heads than myself.

1) Don't hesitate to specifically "dress up" and take photos. There is NOTHING that says photos have to be candid shots. While it's a lovely idea that you are just the kind of person who looks great in photos naturally, not everyone does. Some of us have to dress properly, put on make up, and pose for a photo. You have to clean up your bedroom, or call a friend to come over, trim your shrubs, rake your front yard, pose and stage the photo. If that is what it takes to get a great set of photos for your profile, DO IT.

2) A professional photographer of my acquaintance told me that he takes at least 10 shots to get ONE decent one. I figure that not being a pro and not having nearly the $5000 camera and lens set that he does, I will have to take 30-50 shots to get a single decent photo. Don't be afraid to take those 50 shots to get GREAT pictures. TAKE THEM. Make whomever is taking your pictures take dozens of pictures, to make sure you get the absolute BEST possible shots. Be patient. Be PICKY.

3) Try not to have selfies if you can avoid it. If that's ALL you have, so be it, make them as good as possible, but look for someone else who also has selfies and offer to take their pictures, if they will take yours. Then get together and take photos for each other. Take yours on your phone and theirs on their phone. This takes effort, but it's worth the effort.

4) When you post your main profile picture, understand that SLS "frames" the picture in a square for its thumbnails, so crop the picture properly--in a square. For single women, this means either upper (tits) or lower (ass) for men arms/shoulders, abs, or ass. If you don't crop your profile picture properly, you can get an awkward thumbnail. You don't want that, it's the first think people see and you can't undo a bad first impression. For a couple, figure it out... usually the upper body should be centered. If you are showing your faces, don't cut your heads off.

5) If you are taking pictures in your bedroom mirror and you have a very busy bedspread, take it off your bed and make the bed up neatly with just your blanket. The busy pattern of your spread with look like clutter on your bed. Mine did.

6) You get FIVE public pictures on your front page. Choose them carefully:

In general

Don't show your face or your junk, no nudes, it's crass. SLS is mature, but not pr0n. That goes in your Private folder.

Always take everything out of your pockets when taking pictures.

Remember to SMILE.

Stand up straight; chin up, shoulders rolled back and down, stick your boobs out. Suck in your gut.

Here are the pictures to have:

Formal wear (1)

Women: Dress (long or short), make up, jewelry, hair done, heels

Men: pressed evening wear (jacket, shirt, tie, shined shoes).

Couples should pose together

Casual wear (1)

Men: Jeans or shorts (no cargo shorts!) Polo or nice(!) tshirt. No wrinkles. sneakers or shoes.

Women: Jeans, shorts(no cargo), or skirt. Polo or blouse. Jewelry is a nice touch here.

Couples: one together OR one each alone.

(3) Active pictures of you "doing stuff."

Here is where you get to shine as a human being.

Ride your mountain bike. Paddle a kayak. Go fishing or hiking. Fix your classic car. Don't pose in front of your sports car, this is bragging. and for crissakes, don't pose in front of a sports car that is NOT yours!!!.

What if you aren't sporty? Go to the Farmer's Market. So shopping at the Outlets. Take pictures at a concert or Busch Gardens. Go for a walk in the park. Take your dogs walking. Play with your cat. Do yo-yo tricks. Clean your garage. Take a picture with your gargoyle collection. Play your guitar. Do something INTERESTING.

If you like the beach, you can substitute a beach picture for one "activity" shot. Don't make the mistake of too many beach shots. Even if you love the beach until the end of time, only one beach shot. We get the idea already.

Optional "the sexy photo" (ONE ONLY!!!!)

Men: shirtless, your abs, muscular arms, if you have a nice ass, or nice legs.

Women: If you have a Bikini bod, by all means! Or put on some lingerie and show off your round ass.

Couples: Couples tend to err on the side of only showing one member of the couple. The wife is hot, they show a dozen
photos, but the husband has a Dad-bod. There are none of him at all. Do NOT make this mistake. Pictures of BOTH are a REQUIREMENT (but he does not have to remove his clothes!). Post photos. Suck it up, buttercup.

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1. Lastly, look for examples of photos you love and see if you can emulate the lighting, posing, and composition you see in them. I would never copy another artists work directly, but I often use other photos for inspiration, even if it's just a small piece of the whole.

I hope these suggestions help, but if you have any questions about anything I've written, feel free to ask here or in a message. I wish I could post a few examples to better explain some of these, but this site doesn't support it. I do have a ton of images in one of my Personal galleries and I'm willing to open that to anyone who asks.

• Most manufacturers either mark their lenses or market their lenses with a "35mm-equivalent" focal length. This is the focal length of the lens compared to a lens of similar viewing angle on a 35mm film camera or "full-frame" digital camera. The size of the digital sensor that sees the image and the lens design is what determines the actual focal length of the lens and can vary from camera to camera, so manufacturers have standardized their ratings for virtually all lenses by labeling them with these "equivalent" focal lengths. A 50mm lens equivalent is considered a "normal" lens and represents how most people see the world around them. Most camera phones use a wide-angle lens (24-30mm equivalent) because it's always possible to crop that size to a smaller (longer focal length) part of the image rather than add unseen details to the sides of the composition.

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1. Compose like a pro. Placing your subject right in the middle of the frame is boring. Using what's known as the "rule-of-thirds" forces the subject out of the middle and closer to an edge—any edge—of the photo. This tip assumes a tic-tac-toe grid on your viewfinder that divides the height and width into equal thirds. I heard a good recommendation that suggested placing a small piece of masking tape in the middle of this grid. That way, you have to compose a shot with your subject anywhere outside this masked zone. (Hint: the subject doesn't have to be the entire person; usually just placing the eyes on this invisible grid is all that is needed.) PRO TIP: Every subject has a "face." People, obviously, but also buildings, animals, and even trees. An inanimate face is usually defined by the way light falls on it (the sunny side is the face) and that face should always point into the composition. In other words, if your face is on the right half of the photo, it should be looking toward the viewer's left and vice versa. A tree with light on its right side should be placed on the left side of the image so the lighted side points toward the viewer's right. If you want to create confusion or instability, have the face of your subject on the side of the composition looking out of the frame. Not recommended, but it has been used by photographers and cinematographers to disorient the audience.

1. Take a deep breath. I see a lot of people slouching in their photos. One excellent way to subvert this tendency is to take a deep breath just before the photo is snapped. It fills the chest, forces your shoulders back, and removes the slouch. Don't hold it too long, though; you don't want to look panicked in your photos.

1. Lift your chin. I know a lot of people don't like the way their neck looks in photos. They want to hide it by lowering their jaw to cover it up. This isn't fooling anyone. Not only does it make you look like a beaten dog, it actually compresses the skin and adds folds when none might exist. I recommend laying on your belly on a sofa or bed and looking straight out with the camera at your face height. Get up on your elbows to show some cleavage and still hide the lower body. Don't raise your head so high that we are looking up your nostrils, though. PRO TIP: Roll your hips (not your shoulders) toward the camera to show off your buns in the same shot. Trust me, the hip roll makes your hips wider while still keeping your waist thin.

1. Get rid of the sunglasses. I know it's bright out there, but you can go a few seconds without sunglasses before you go blind from the sun. Face away from the sun and use Tip Number 1 to correctly expose your face. PRO TIP: Shoot outside during the first hour after sunrise or the last hour before sunset to keep from having to squint during your photos. The light at these times of day is more flattering and the low angle of the sun fills in shadows in the eyes, preventing them from becoming black sockets in an otherwise correctly exposed face. Also, when the sun is very low, you can look almost directly at it without hurting your eyes and this adds beautiful glints of light to the dark pupils. (Never look directly at the sun, even for a second.) Also good is cloudy days with very soft light coming from all angles.

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As there are other threads dedicated to entire profile reviews, I decided to start one that will be mostly read-only. In other words, I'm not going to offer critique of anyone's photos. Instead, I'll simply offer a few guidelines (not rules) that can help you create better photos for your own profile. None of this will require expensive cameras or lights, but you will need at least a smartphone with a camera or some kind of point-and-shoot camera (obviously). In no particular order:

1. Control the light. This one seems obvious, but a lot of people seem to think the camera knows best. It doesn't. If your background is exceptionally dark, the camera may attempt to overexpose the entire shot to compensate for that darkness. This can result in the subject being way too bright. By the same token, a bright background (snow or a beach) can force the opposite effect and your subject might be way too dark. Most cameras have a way to override the automatic settings, so try that a few times to get the hang of it. PRO TIP: Avoid the on-camera flash. Shadows are the only way to show depth and texture in a 2-dimensional photo and having the light source millimeters from the lens axis removes any trace of a shadow, resulting in a flat, boring photo. If you can have someone else hold a lamp or other light source off to the side, do that, or use whatever available lighting exists in your location. Google examples of "chiaroscuro."

1. Clean up the clutter. No one wants to see your laundry or dirty dishes. A few seconds spent cleaning up your room can make all the difference in a photo, even if you just kick it all under the bed. PRO TIP: Unless your home looks like it belongs in the pages of Architectural Digest, get a hotel room for one night and shoot your boudoir stuff there. There is never any garbage in the background and you won't have to worry about someone judging your priceless collection of PEZ dispensers.

1. Get further away from the lens. Some newer phones have cameras with a dual-lens arrangement that allows for better portraits. These cameras use the longer lens (telephoto) to take advantage of the techniques long used by professional portrait photographers. They know that wide-angle lenses distort human facial features, making the nose bigger and reducing or even blocking the view of the ears. A longer lens forces you to get the camera further from the face and reveals more of the sides of the head and the ears. The reason this looks more natural is because when you use both of your eyes (binocular vision) to look at a three-dimensional face, your right eye sees their left ear and your left eye sees their right ear. Your brain marries the two images and what you see is what you expect to see in a photo. You can always shoot from further away and then crop the image to delete the non-essential background, but this also reduces the detail and resolution in the image, and very few people will go through the trouble of getting further away just to throw out most of the image. However, if you don't have a zoom- or dual-lens camera, this may be your best course of action. PRO TIP: If you DO have a camera with a zoom lens or interchangeable lenses, use the longest end of the zoom range. Anything above a 90mm equivalent* should work fine.

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