Pictures are an absolute necessity if you want to hook up with someone in an online dating site. There are many easy ways to get your photographs scanned and loaded, with the help of the dating sites. Some people are too timid to post pics. What have you got to lose? The world knows you are an eligible single. The world knows very desirable singles more often than not can’t find dates easily. It pays to advertise. Maybe some of your friends will recognize you and set you up for a date offline. Post a photo or two of yourself.

Not just any picture. Your photos have to be fabulous. Again, I am not talking about how you look if you are not born handsome or beautiful. You can’t do much about your looks or physique. However you look, your pictures CAN and MUST be fabulous, and can compete with any super models. What I mean by fabulous photo is a picture that shows you in the best light. A clear, focused, well-composed, quality photo, with you well groomed and dressed, taken in a pleasant environment. The picture should be of yourself, a shot of upper body or frontal face, not of you with someone.

Leave out your children, however adorable they may be. This is not the time to tell a potential date that the kids must be included in the relationship. You will have plenty of chances to tell that later. Right now, you need to hook someone in, and your soulmates are not spending time in online personals to look at kid’s pictures. If you look heavy in the picture, do not worry. There are people who look for heavier persons. Remember beauty is in the eyes of beholder. (No grainy, tiny, fuzzy photos. Absolutely no pics with your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend cut out, please.) Here are some additional tips.

• Get a special photo taken by a professional photographer. It’s still cheaper than hiring an introduction agency for thousands of dollars. The photographers know what you don’t know about photos.


• For ladies, get your makeup done professionally. Your makeup looks lighter in photos. Tell them it’s for a photo shoot, and they will do it heavier than normal if they know. Your photographers can recommend the right makeup people.


• Choose attractive outfit, not too formal or business-like. Casual dress will give warmer and friendlier impression. Have a of change of dress during the photo shoot.


• The most important of all: You must look happy, relaxed and CONFIDENT! Did we all hear that confidence (not beauty or wealth) is the most sexy thing most people find in the opposite sex?


• If you do not hire a pro, ask a friend who knows his ways around a camera. Shoot upper body or face, in a variety of poses and compositions in good lighting conditions.


• Take some indoors and go to a park for outdoors shooting. A neatly groomed person in an attractive casual dress in a park with colorful flowers and green background should make you look good!


• Take a lot of different shots, mostly close-up pics. Shoot a whole roll for this purpose. (You saw in TV that they shoot super models with rolls and rolls of pics to get a few usable ones.) You will be lucky to find one or two “fabulous pics.” But you WILL find one you can be proud of, if you shoot a whole roll.

After you load your fabulous pics and compose a knock-your-socks-off essay, you can be sure of an avalanche of reponses. I hope you will have enough time to respond. Good luck!