I had an interesting discussion with a group of women the other day about internet dating photos. Being someone who is into portrait photography (in particular "candid" portraits) I found it quite interesting to hear that in the eyes of these women an SLR was not acceptable when taking shots for use for internet dating sites. The general concensus was that smart phones and cheap point-and-shoot cameras were the best choice for taking shots of men for their online profile. I say "men" as this was the basis of the discussion we were having.
The women felt that if a man has "high quality" photographs on his profile he is revealing to others that he is vain and preoccupied with his appearance, therefore he would not come across as appealing to any of these women. I tried to make the point that with an SLR you can take equally candid shots, but it seems that because you can tell the image is shot on a "high quality" camera that it automatically makes it look as if the guy is trying too hard to impress (or as i said before he believes he is very handsome).
Speaking from a male perspective I really have no issue if a woman takes here photo with an MF, FF, APS-C or even an iPhone, it comes down to what the image is actually of. Also, if I noticed that a person of average beauty was using photos that looked like were produced by an SLR I would not automatically assume that they were vain...unless of course if the content of the photo suggested otherwise. My male friends agree with me on this, that a "high quality" image of a woman on a dating website is not necesarily a bad thing.
A male friend of mine wanted me to do some photos for him and he sent
this link to me. Keep in mind that article is a little old now, but it does raise some interesting points about people's preconceived ideas about photography and what it says about the people in the image. Some could say these are sexist remarks, possibly it is just a preference of these women for their men to not be too preoocupied with their appearance?
I felt like opening this can or worms to get some discussion from both men and women about how they feel about this idea, that an SLR (or any expensive camera for that matter) is not the right tool for the job when it comes to creating portraits for people to use on their online dating profiles and what people really want are lower quality "ultra candid" photos instead.
TO CLARIFY: If you had two photos one from a smart phone (for example) and one from an SLR both are of the same person, taken at the same time and both are candid would you feel that the photo from the smart phone would make a person appear more desirable for dating than the photo from an SLR?
Last edited by noVICE; 09-30-2012 at 11:08 PM.
Reason: Clarification