Things Not to do in a Picture

[JustAskJulie]

Ok, I just pulled up SLS and of course the first page is the listing of random ads near you or something like that and some of the pictures that went with those ads just got me thinking so I had to come and post this.

Why is it that when people post pics with their ads they pick the post awful pictures? I mean, do they not look at them?

Just on those 10 matched ads, here's what I saw....

Webcam shots of a couple that looked completely pissed off.... or in the case of the guy made him look like someone you don't want to piss off.

A picture of a woman lying on her back in water... the picture chopped her head off (which is ok, I understand why people do that), but the bad part was that since she had rather large breasts and the pic was taken at an angle, it looked like one was fake and floating on top of the water while the other was real...flat and sinking.

One woman evidently felt that all she had to show off was her cleavage, because that is is ALL you can see in a picture of her wearing a black dress... make that 3 pictures of her.

Perhaps we need to put together some tips for how to take pics for an ad, maybe. So what things have you seen (besides the obvious crotch shots), that make you wonder why these people opted to use THAT shot?

[OhioCouple]

I've seen quite a few pictures, in which I've wondered just the same. Out of curiosity, I visited our ad site and pulled up a few pics of those closest to us. Leaving out the 'crotch shots', most were pretty okay, however there was one in which the gal looked seriously deformed. The camera angle was just all wrong and it looked as though she had the waist of a toothpick and the extremities of a whale. Another photo projected what she normally would most like look like...so why use the other? Just to fill the slots on the front page?

I've seen photos where the people may be happy and smiling but their surroundings are littered with garbage and dirty clothing, pictures where there are pictures of their loved ones surrounding them (usually by the mantle) and some that didn't look like they bothered to comb their hair this month, much less brush their teeth. Surrender

I think some of it may just be the eagerness to have a photo up so that they may get more attention, for the rest, just plain old ignorance.

[JnCC]

I'm glad I'm not the only person who's noticed that! When we were on one of the other swingers websites, my ex- and I paid as much attention to the composition of the picture and what was in the background, etc., as we did to their actual appearance. Probably more, in fact. It's a habit I continue to this day on the "vanilla" dating website to which I belong.

Things that usually caught our eye, and not in a good way;

1) Cum shots - facial or otherwise. Interesting? Marginally. Sexy or erotic? Hardly, especially for most women. Make us feel inclined to contact them? Never. Guys holding their dicks combined with the above? One word...pathetic.

2) Open crotch - Not as big of a turn-on as they probably expect. Vagina's are kind of weird...I never saw an ugly one on a woman I liked, and never saw a pretty one on a woman I didn't. She felt the same way . Maybe fun to look at if you're a 13 year old boy and wondering "just what the hell IS up there," but having participated in the birth of all 3 of my kids, it's a degree of detail neither of us needed to know about somebody before we went to bed with them.

3) Trash and clutter in the background - That just screams "we have NO class whatsoever" to people. Even after 30+ years of "doin' it," sex is still kinda special. If you can't take a little time to prepare a place for it, maybe it's not so "special" for you. If you think a picture of a full clothes hamper, full ashtrays, and everything that you're collecting for your forthcoming yard sale is sexy, I guess we're not your type.

4) Pictures of vehicles. JUST vehicles. - I understand the reasoning behind including things you find of interest in your pics. We certainly did...both cars and bikes, because those were other activities we enjoyed. But WE were in the pics too. For some reason, (and it seems that single guy-trolls were the worst offenders) we'd get pics of their weiner, followed by a pic of their brand new, fully-chromed, Hardley-Dallysome Electro-Spasm Glide sitting in a driveway somewhere. I guess we were supposed to be so turned on by their bike we'd overlook their obvious physical "shortcomings" Thank God for the "delete" key...

[hotsummers]

LOL, our favorite is the listing with 6-8 pics of the guy in every pose possible and the ONE shot of the wife getting in or out of the shower or walking down the hall, or some other pics where she OBVIOUSLY had no idea hubby was going to post it on a swingers site! Of course this guy always wants to swing alone because wife doesn't feel good that night! LOL

We also like theones where the people look drunk.... NOT! But we must admit they are entertaining, all of them.

[menher1559]

It's kind of ironic. Wife and I were just looking at some pics on SLS yesterday and I couldn't help but comment on all the trash and garbage that people took pictures of. Maybe there would be a long legged lady struting around in a pair of somewhat "unsexy" panties, but what really caught our attention were the mountain dew cans in the floor and the computer sitting on top of a cardboard box. Oh yeah and let's not forget the dirty clothes mixed up with the mountain dew cans.

We certainly aren't professional photographers by any means, but I certainly don't want to show the rest of the world our dirty laundry.

Just curious, what do you folks think make good photo layouts for sites like SLS and others.

[hfire269]

I cant figure out why alot of couples only ever post pics of the woman. "Um Hello you're a couple right?" What happened to the male half.. You know some of us want to see what the male looks like too..
I saw this on pic of a women the other night that was a diffenet turn off. She looked as though shes on crack or hasnt slept in 10 yrs... The ad said she was 23 but I swear she looked 80.....
Gotta love the 12 shots of the guys peinse to from every angle possible.. usually the guys taking them him self.. I guess this is suppsoe to make him feel better about his size

[Miss_Piggy]

I just did a quick peek of the SLS ads in my area and have come up with a few things that I personally don't like (aside from the obvious no nos):

1) Pictures cut out into weird shapes. It just looks funny. Especially, when the image is on a white backbround while the actual site has a grey background.

2) Pictures that are of such poor quality that you can't make anything out in them. Why bother?

[Chicup]

1 - Crotch shots.

2 - Sex shots.

3 - Only pictures of ONE of the couple. If its all the women you know the guy is most likely hideous, and if its only the guy you KNOW the wife is not attractive or he is a cheater.

4 - The same shot from slightly different angles.

5 - Their motorcycle/Car. To me this says 'low class'.

6 - Wedding pictures. This is 2004, digital pictures are easy, take a new one.

7 - Web cam shots, almost no one looks good hunched over the computer for a web cam shot. See #6

[Dr Jekyll]

Fluffy toys. We once chatted to this couple where the (not so innocent) pictures of the girl included 10+ teddy bears. Somehow that wasn't the most sensual image I've ever encountered.

The rest are covered in the various posts above...

[curiousagain]

Most of the bad things are covered in the previous post but one pet peeve I have is when there are multiple pics and none of them look like the same person. Now, different angles, lighting, perspective, hair styles, etc. can sometimes make a person look totally different but when it is obvious there is much poundage and possibly years involved in the differences, which one is the correct one???

oh yeah, when the only shot is cleavage or genitalia, you can pretty much be guaranteed you don't want to see "the rest of the story".

[misterbates]

[quote=hfire269]I cant figure out why alot of couples only ever post pics of the woman. "Um Hello you're a couple right?" What happened to the male half.. You know some of us want to see what the male looks like too..
I saw this on pic of a women the other night that was a diffenet turn off. She looked as though shes on crack or hasnt slept in 10 yrs... The ad said she was 23 but I swear she looked 80.....
Gotta love the 12 shots of the guys peinse to from every angle possible.. usually the guys taking them him self.. I guess this is suppsoe to make him feel better about his size [/QUOTE

We LOVE taking pics!!!..So..our profiles always have lots of high quality pics..of the both of us..but most of her..Cuz i'm just too damn ugly..camera freezes up everytime i get my pic taken!!!

Seriously though there are a good number of pics of me too...but we know one couple that has about 80 pics on swappernet and say in the profile how they hate couples who only post pics of the female....well out of 80 pics they have2 of him.... one of his face and one of his dick..and the face pic is like 10 yrs old...we know this cuz we know them personally!!!!..

And the unsexy undies,messy backgrounds,fuzzy webcam pics,or just plain horrible shots!!!! OMG!!!!..i cant beleive what people will post!!!!!
Mr B
facelick

[NWARcouple]

We would have to agreee with the majority of the comments made so far...

One of our worst pet peeves is clutter in the background!

Typically, we're not as offended by pics of just the female, probably because we are guilty of the same thing (at least in our public pics, our private pics are a d. :-/ We'll change that one soon though.... It really hasn't been our intent, more so than an indicator of who is usually behind the camera.

[Vespertine]

Originally Posted by OhioCouple

I
I've seen photos where the people may be happy and smiling but their surroundings are littered with garbage and dirty clothing, pictures where there are pictures of their loved ones surrounding them (usually by the mantle)

Dito

When we receive messages from people on add sites, we always pay close attention to the background in the pics. We can't help but bypass couples because their homes look trashy or because they're standing in front of their trailers with beer cans littering the ground.

[JnCC]

Something to keep in mind regarding the "no pics of the guy" comments.

It's well documented that men are the more visually aroused of the sexes, while women tend to be drawn more to personalities. It follows then, that profile pics would tend to favor the female, while the textual description (which reveals personality) would more likely be written by the man. That also explains why a couple is likely to possess more pics of the woman than of the man...because he's the one who's interested in pics, not her.

All you have to do to prove this is to look at the magazine rack at the local bookstore. How many are dedicated to the female body? Literally dozens. How many to the male? A few, perhaps. Playgirl, and...??? Women are drawn to beautiful words, while men are drawn to beautiful bodies.

It's how guys like me get laid.

There are other reasons why a male may not post pics. In our case, I was the primary breadwinner. At the time, I was probably making 5X what my wife was, and carrying the health insurance. It made no sense to jeopardize all that just to catch the eye of another couple. Besides, we never went to bed with anybody until after they'd seen me in person. I'd hate to think I was responsible for too many women having to "take a bullet" for their husbands benefit.

True, an ugly man is more likely to have a beautiful wife, than an ugly woman is to have a beautiful husband, but that's more a reflection of how wealth is distributed in our society, especially among people over 50. I suppose that's not much consolation to an attractive couple who's meeting what they think is going to be another attractive couple, but find that she's the only one with any looks, while he's the one with the Mercedes.

[NaughtyKatt]

We are guilty of having more pics of myself on our SLS ad, too. That is our default pic over there <<<<<<
Sometimes I think it looks like my legs end at my knees, though. We have 4 "sexy" pics of me and one normal clothed pic of him in the first 5 pics that can be seen by anyone. Although we don't show our full faces in those first 5 pics, we're pretty sure that anyone who knows us would probably recognize us anyway. Paid members can see a pic of both of us that shows our faces. We don't really have many good pics of both of us, but we were able to get that pretty decent one by using the timer on the camera.

I wish I could get more good pics of my hubby, but I just have more fun in front of the camera. I love his body, but in general I don't think there are many sexy "poses" for guys. I did take a really great pic of him the other day, just a really cute and casual pic of him with our dog. I don't think it's really the right kind of pic for SLS, though.

~Kat