3 Reasons to Have a Black and White Dating Photo

Black and white photos have that timeless, classic look that is hard not to love. But is putting a black and white photo on your dating profile a good idea? 

Here are 3 reasons the answer might be “YES”.

1. Black and white photos get more likes. 

According to a Hinge report, black and white photos are 106% more likely to receive a like and make up only 3% of photos on dating apps. [ Here’s the report if you’re curious ]

If I had to speculate about why this is the case, I’d guess that they stand out because there are so few of them! As Sesame Street fans will recall, when “one of these things is not like the other…” it’s pretty damn attention-grabbing 🙂

2. If there is something distracting in the background of a photo (like a big blue recycle bin), converting it to BW is a quick and easy fix. 

You don’t want things in your dating profile photos that are competing for attention with you. Bright colored objects are notorious for stealing visual bandwidth. 

A photo that may otherwise be dicey or unusable is now ready to rock in black and white.

3. If you have two great photos of you in the same outfit, making one of them black & white can make it feel different enough to use in the same dating profile.

Ideally you’re wearing different clothes in all of your dating profile pics–along with being in different environments, wearing diff clothes in each of your dating profile photos is a way of showing some range and making it easy for your ideal matches to imagine spending time with you in a variety of contexts. 

But sometimes, as luck would have it, you end up with multiple great photos in the same outfit–maybe they were both shot on the same super fun night in Vegas or maybe they were a few frames from your professional dating profile photo shoot.

An easy solution to this two-photos-one-outfit pickle is to chose one of the photos and make it black and white.

**I suggest giving the two same-outfit photos a little buffer from each other by not having them appear next to each other in your dating profile.


>> One final reason to include black and white dating photos on your profile (which isn’t really a reason so much as it is permission) is just because you like them 🙂

For more tips on building your dating profile, check out my interview with Dating Coach Blaine Anderson.

And while you’re fine-tuning your dating photos, make sure to remove these 5 photos from your dating profile!

Sick of trying to piece all of this together on your own?

>> Hire me as your dating photographer!

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