Dating Profile
Photographer in Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra

A dating profile is judged in about a second, and almost all of that second goes on the first photograph. That is not vanity, it is arithmetic – and it is also why a set of good pictures is worth more than one great one. The profile has to answer three questions in order: what does this person look like, what are they like, and what would an afternoon with them be.

Who books this

People who look better in person than in their photographs, which is most people. Expats who arrived in Lisbon recently and have nothing that shows the life they live now. People back on the apps after a long relationship, whose most recent pictures have somebody cropped out of them. And a fair number who have been told, kindly, by a friend, that the photos are the problem.

What a working set looks like

One clear photograph of your face, close enough to be trusted. Two or three at half length in different places, so the profile has some range. One that shows you doing something rather than posing – a coffee, a walk, a street you actually use. And one full length, because leaving it out is read as hiding something. Different shirts, different backgrounds, one afternoon.

Where we shoot

Lisbon does most of the work. Alfama and Graça for tiled walls and narrow light. Bairro Alto and Príncipe Real for colour and doorways. The miradouros for a view behind you, early enough that the view is not behind forty other people. A café table, because half of a good profile is somebody sitting down looking like company. We pick one area and walk it rather than driving between five.

How the session goes

About ninety minutes. We meet with coffee, and I explain almost nothing at the start, because instructions are what make people look stiff. We walk, we talk, and I photograph while you are answering something. When something needs adjusting I say so in a sentence – where to stand, which way to look – and then get out of the way again. Bring two or three tops; changing shirts is the cheapest way to make one afternoon look like several.

Editing, and what I will not do

Colour and light corrected, skin left alone. No slimming, no jaw sharpening, no borrowed sky. This is not a principle I enjoy explaining, it is the practical part: the photograph's job is to get you to the table, and anything that would not survive the meeting is working against you.

What you get

A curated online gallery in full resolution, ready to download, with no watermarks and no per-photo charges. Delivery within a week. If you want, tell me which apps you use and I will mark which frames I would lead with and which I would keep for the middle of the set – the crop that works at a thumbnail is not always the one that works large.