Without any actual data on the phenomenon, it’s fair to assume that the majority of dick pics are taken with smartphones. And considering that there are over one billion iPhone users globally, a fair share of those are probably taken on iPhones. Thus, the way a penis is photographed is often in Apple’s hands, and as their cameras get more advanced, so too do the dick pics they capture.
This became especially relevant when Apple unleashed its ultra-wide iPhone lens in 2019, which was immediately used for horny purposes. As many people on both Twitter and Reddit have pointed out, the 0.5x option allows for objects to appear much longer than they actually are. It seems obvious, then, that people would use it for dick pics. But should you?
In a safe-for-work example of what this looks like, a redditor posted two pictures of a banana, one utilizing the standard camera lens and the other utilizing the ultra-wide, 0.5x lens. With the latter, an otherwise average banana became gargantuan, almost freakishly long. “Life pro tip: use an iPhone 11 to take your dick pics,” the redditor wrote.
But while it’s a fun theory, it’s probably not the wisest decision. “You’ll have to get too close with the ultra-wide [lens] to make it look big,” says Stan Horaczek, photographer and senior gear editor at our sister sites, Popular Science and Popular Photography. “The perspective distortion will make it look like a weird Frankenstein dick. Use the regular lens and keep your feet out of it,” he recommends (though it’s unclear what he has against feet).
“Weird Frankenstein dick” — or, I guess, weird Frankenstein’s monster dick — is rather accurate, too. Even in the banana photos, you can tell that something is off, and it doesn’t look natural. And yet, despite many people preferring to see a penis that looks average and human as opposed to a large dick that gives off an uncanny valley vibe, it’s still a recommendation some men make to each other to make themselves look bigger. In a post on r/BigDickProblems from four years ago, one user gives a detailed guide on how to take a dick pic that implements the wide-lens distortion style one might see in porn. “Use a wide-angle lens on your camera, the wider the better (or more obvious distortion of reality),” they wrote. There’s an official name for this, too: cockfishing.
Again, though, a distortion of reality shouldn’t be your goal here, especially if you plan to reveal your much smaller dick in person. One exception to this is people who are trying to make their dicks look smaller for the sake of small penis humiliation. As one guy with the fetish tells me via Twitter, he likes to take pictures of his dick when he’s cold, sitting and leaning forward and pointing his camera at his dick from above. When he does this, he says, his dick looks “microscopic.” Unlike most situations where someone might be trying to make their dick look bigger in a photo, he’s not attempting to deceive a partner about his true size. Instead, he only does this with consenting partners who are aware of his fetish and want to play into it with him.
Nevertheless, there are ways of enhancing how your dick looks on camera without straight-up lying. Most of the advice guys share with me basically involves doing the opposite of what the guy with the small penis humiliation fetish does — that is, don’t lean forward, don’t take the photo from above and don’t take the picture when you’re cold and might be dealing with shrinkage.
“It’s always about angles, and I try to capture a shot from a lower, angled shot to have it take up the entirety of the screen,” says T.B., a guy in his 20s. As he and others insist, this angle allows for the maximum perception of length, as you can’t quite exactly tell where the dick ends and the balls begin, depending on how you take the photo, as the ball skin contributes to what the viewer perceives as the length of the penis.
T.B. also recommends oiling up your dick prior to the photo to “make it look lively and flush,” and optionally wearing a cock ring to help make things more engorged. If you don’t have a cock ring, others tell me that they like to wrap their fingers around the base of their dicks and press downward lightly, creating an elongating effect.
It’s reasonable, of course, to want your dick to look as good as possible in photos, and for most people, “good” equals “big.” But the wide-angle lens is essentially a trick mirror — a distortion of reality, much like TikTok or Instagram filters that make people artificially hot. While it might help your dick look bigger, it’s an obvious illusion, and your recipient will likely know what you’re up to.
All that said, it would be fine to include one or two 0.5x dick pics in your catalog as a way to switch things up, but you’ve gotta have some normal ones in there, too. If all your dick pics are taken with a wide lens, it implies that you might be trying to hide the truth. Or, like Horaczek said, it gives off a sort of “monster” effect, leaning more toward the “frightening” definition of the term rather than the “large” one.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
