Ratings of one person varied more across their own photos, with different expressions and angles, than ratings varied between different people (Sutherland, Young & Rhodes 2017). So the face you make, and the photo you pick, count for more than your features.
Decide what the photo is for
- A CV or professional profile: competent, a slight closed smile with the eyes fully open. A broad smile reads warmer but less competent (Wang et al. 2017).
- A team page, or anywhere you ask for trust: trustworthy or approachable.
- A dating profile or a photo for friends: happy. Rated happiness rises from a straight face to a closed smile to a smile showing teeth (Otta, Abrosio & Hoshino 1996).
- A stage or author photo: confident, the chin up about 15° with a small smile.
Chin and lens
What counts is the angle against the line from your face to the lens. A laptop on a desk looks up at you, which is the same as raising your chin; a phone held high looks down at you, the same as lowering it. Put the lens at eye height. A chin tipped down reads as dominant and costs trust (Witkower & Tracy 2019; Torrance et al. 2020).
Eyes
- Look into the lens. Facing the viewer made a smiling face read as more trustworthy (Sutherland, Young & Rhodes 2017).
- Open your eyes fully. More open lids read as more intelligent (Talamas et al. 2016); hanging ones as tired (Sundelin et al. 2013).
- Lifted cheeks make a smile read as more genuine, though more in motion than in photos (Gunnery & Ruben 2016).
Find it, hold it, find it again
The hard part of a photo is producing the face on demand. How I Land shows the look on your own face, tells you what to move, and has you hold it for five seconds, so you can find it again when the camera is someone else’s.
Free. Nothing is recorded, stored or sent.
For fun: Blue Steel, the Mona Lisa smile and other famous faces, step by step.