Occasionally when I’m talking to someone who is thinking about hiring me as their dating profile photographer they’ll say something along the lines of, “but...won’t professional dating photos make me look like I’m trying too hard?”

My in-a-nutshell and based-on-experience answer has gradually evolved to this:

"Professional dating photos won’t make it look like you’re trying too hard. They’ll just make you look like you’re trying.” <<--and this is a GOOD thing.

But I wasn’t always so sure of this answer. In fact, when I first began as a dating profile photographer (shooting dating pics on the side for my professional headshot photography clients), I wondered about this myself:

What message does it send to people when a person has photos on their dating profiles that were clearly shot by a professional photographer? What do professional dating profile photos say about someone?

So I started asking people. More specifically, I asked women between the ages of 25-50 (the majority of my dating photography clients are straight men in this same age bracket).

Their answers were surprisingly consistent...

When you encounter a guy on a dating app who has clearly hired a pro photographer to shoot his dating profile photos, what does it tell you about him? 

• It tells me he’s making an effort <<--this is HUGE
• He cares; he’s invested in meeting someone special
• He “gets it” (that we live in a visual world and photos are clearly the most important thing on a dating profile)
• It tells me he’s self-aware (he clearly realized his old pics weren’t cutting it)
• He has the financial means to hire a pro photographer
• He’s clearly smart enough to outsource the things he isn’t good at (like getting great photos of himself)
• It tells me he has a strong self-worth and sees himself as someone of value who warrants good marketing

You get the gist. 

Across the board, the women I talked to agreed that a man having hired a professional dating photographer was a decidedly positive sign. 

As one friend put it, “If I can tell from the get-go that a guy isn’t putting any effort into his dating profile, I’m a hard ‘no’. Relationships take effort! They take self-awareness and a willingness to be vulnerable. If a guy has hired a professional photographer for his dating pics he clearly has both of those qualities and that says a lot. Plus, I put a lot of effort into looking attractive. It’s refreshing to see a guy who’s doing the same, ya know?”

I do know.

Matter of fact, when I step out of my dating photographer shoes and into the shoes of a single woman trying to meet a great guy on dating apps, I agree 100%. 

Same goes for seeing a man who is well-dressed in his dating pics and has thoughtfully curated his dating app pics to give a multi-dimensional sense of his personality and his lifestyle.

All of these things show a woman--I care, and I'm trying.

So I no longer worry that having outstanding dating profile pics (the kind only a professional photographer can capture) could be a bad thing.

Plus, the results my clients report after updating their dating profiles with professional pictures *without changing anything else*--speak for themselves.

If you’re like, “hell yeah girl, I wanna be one of those guys who women can tell is making an effort” HIT ME UP! Let’s make it happen.