The same photo cannot do both jobs, because the two viewers are deciding different things. Someone on Tinder is asking would I want to spend an evening with this person; someone on LinkedIn is asking would I trust this person with money, a job or my time. A picture that answers the first question well usually answers the second badly, and the other way round. I photograph both kinds of set, often for the same client in the same afternoon, and the differences are specific enough to list.
What changes between the two
- What the viewer is deciding. Dating: attraction and ease – is he fun, is she relaxed, could I picture the date. Professional: competence and reliability – does this person look like they know what they are doing and will turn up.
- Framing. Dating sets need range: a clear close-up, a full-length shot, something mid-distance with you doing something. A LinkedIn photo is one picture, head and shoulders, and it is cropped to a small circle on most screens, so the face has to fill the frame.
- Expression. Dating: whatever is real – a laugh, a half-smile, a relaxed unsmiling face looking slightly off camera. Professional: eyes to the lens, an open, mild expression, mouth closed or a small smile. Not stern, not beaming.
- Clothes. Dating: what you actually wear on a good Saturday. Professional: what you would wear to meet a client in your field – which for a lawyer and a software developer are different things, and both are right.
- Background. Dating: a real place with some story in it – a café, a street, a view. Professional: quiet and unspecific – a plain wall, soft shade, a blurred office or city – so nothing competes with the face.
- Light. The one thing that is the same. Soft, directional, from the side or a window. Bad light ruins both kinds of picture identically.
- Number. Dating: four to six, each one different. LinkedIn: one, and the same one everywhere your professional face appears – website, conference bio, email signature – because recognisability across platforms is most of what a professional photo is for.
Why the crossover fails
Put the LinkedIn headshot on a dating profile and it reads as a CV: competent, guarded, hard to imagine on a Tuesday evening. People swipe past professionalism. Put the dating photo – the beach, the wine glass, the friend's dog – on LinkedIn and it reads as someone who does not understand the room. Both mistakes are common, and both come from having one set of pictures and trying to make it stretch.
There is a subtler version of the same error: using a warm, candid, well-lit dating-style portrait on LinkedIn because it is the best photo you have. It is often a better photograph than a headshot. It is still the wrong picture, because the person looking at it is not asking whether you are likeable.
Getting both from one session
They are not separate shoots; they are separate briefs inside one. The professional picture takes fifteen minutes and comes first: shade or a plain wall, a jacket or a collar, eyes to the lens, a dozen frames, done. Then the jacket comes off, we walk, and the rest of the session is the dating set – different places, different distances, you doing things rather than standing. The second half is the enjoyable half, which is another reason to get the headshot out of the way at the start.
In Lisbon that plan almost writes itself. A shaded lane in Alfama or a plain rendered wall in the Baixa for the headshot; then a café terrace, a tram, the riverside at Cais do Sodré or a miradouro in the late light for the rest. Two locations, sometimes three, and you leave with both sets and no overlap between them.
One rule for both
The photo has to look like you now. A dating picture that is three years and a haircut out of date sets up a disappointing first meeting. A professional picture that is out of date sets up the same disappointment at the first client call, with more at stake. If your face has changed, the pictures should too – for most people that means a new set every couple of years, and the professional headshot at least as often as the dating one.
The men's and women's portrait sessions here are built to cover both briefs in one booking. If you already know your dating photos are the weak point, the ten mistakes that cost matches is the place to start; if it is the headshot, come with the jacket and we will do that first.