The Null Device

How to look good in photos

The latest instalment of the OKCupid team's data-mining project looks at the correlations between the attractiveness of profile pictures attractiveness and the EXIF metadata contained in them. Among other things, it has found that:

• While a better camera may not make you a better photographer, it will make you look sexier (assuming you're being photographed with it, that is). Photos taken with Micro Four-Thirds cameras looked the best, followed by those taken with DSLRs, then compacts and finally camera phones, with Windows and Motorola phones taking the most minging profile pictures.
• Apple products do get you laid. or at least iPhone users have richer love lives than users of other smartphones.
• If you wish to take a flattering photo, open the aperture, getting a nice short depth of field (having a good camera, or at least not a cameraphone, helps here) and, for God's sake, don't use flash. (Unless perhaps you're going for that abject hipster porn aesthetic you see in American Apparel ads and Terry Richardson features in Vice.)
• The golden hour is not a myth; attractiveness of photos does spike immediately after sunrise and before sunset.

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