Taking a Better Photo: Light, Distance, and the Right Moment

The phone you already own takes better photographs than the most expensive consumer camera I owned in 1995. That is not advertising language; it's an engineering fact that took me a long time to accept. The reason most senior smartphone photos look like senior smartphone photos has very little to do with the phone itself. It has to do with where the photographer is standing, what the light is doing, and the moment they tap the button.

The five habits below are what I tell my class. None requires a different phone, an extra purchase, or a course at the community college.

One. Get closer than you think

The single most common mistake is standing too far away. A photograph of a grandchild in the back yard taken from twelve feet away is mostly back yard. The grandchild is a small figure surrounded by lawn.

The same photograph from three feet away, with the grandchild filling most of the frame, is a portrait. You can see their face. You can see whether they were laughing or about to cry. The lawn behind them becomes a blur of green that says "summer afternoon."

Walk closer. Don't zoom — the digital zoom on a phone makes the photograph worse, not better. Walk.

Two. Put the light behind you, not behind your subject

If you're inside the house, this means standing with your back to the window. If you're outside, this means having the sun behind your shoulder rather than over your subject's head. The photograph the phone takes is always brightest where the most light is — if the brightest area is behind your subject, your subject becomes a silhouette.

The exception, which is worth knowing: a sunset where you want the sun in the photograph. There, the subject can be a silhouette deliberately, and the sky takes over. Otherwise, light behind you.

Three. Tap the screen on what you want sharp

Open the Camera app. Frame the photograph. Before pressing the shutter, tap the screen on the most important thing in the frame — usually a face. A small yellow square appears for a second. The phone has now focused on that point and adjusted the exposure for it.

This one habit eliminates roughly half the bad smartphone photos I see at my class. The phone, left to its own devices, focuses on the largest object in the frame, which is rarely the most interesting object.

Some phones now let you also drag a small sun icon up or down after focusing to make the image brighter or darker. This is the closest thing to a "real camera" control the phone offers, and it is genuinely useful in tricky light.

Four. Wait one beat after they laugh

Most candid photos are taken at the wrong moment. The person says something funny, somebody laughs, the photographer pushes the shutter at the peak of the laugh, and the photograph is of a person mid-howl with their mouth wide open. Not flattering.

The good photograph is one beat after the laugh, when the person is starting to come down and they have what photographers call a "honest smile" — natural, slightly tired around the eyes, more authentic than the peak. Wait. Take it then.

For posed portraits, the same principle applies in reverse. Say something to get a real reaction, wait one beat, take it.

Five. Take three of every photograph

Storage on a modern phone is essentially unlimited for photographs. The first photo you take of any scene is rarely the best one. The second is usually better — you've adjusted slightly. The third sometimes catches a moment the first two missed.

Take three. Look at them later, in your living room with your tea, and delete the two you don't want. You will have a meaningfully better photograph collection if you do this than if you take one and hope.

For group photos specifically, take four or five. Someone always blinks.

The settings worth changing

Two changes I recommend for almost everyone:

Turn on the grid. iPhone: Settings → Camera → Grid → on. Android (Pixel): Camera app → settings → Grid type → 3x3. The grid divides your screen into nine equal squares with two horizontal and two vertical lines. The intersections are where your subject's eyes — or any other important detail — should sit. This is the "rule of thirds" from photography, and the grid is the easiest way to see it.

Turn off "Live Photo" or "Motion Photo" unless you want it. Both Apple and Google quietly record a few seconds of video and audio around each still photo. This eats storage and sometimes catches private conversations you didn't mean to record. The button to toggle it is at the top of the camera app on iPhone (a small set of circles); on Android it's in the camera settings menu.

The portrait mode question

Both phones now offer a "Portrait" mode that blurs the background of a photograph artificially, making the subject pop in a way that used to require an expensive lens. The effect is sometimes lovely and sometimes obviously fake — you'll see grandchild's curly hair mostly intact except for the one strand the phone decided was background.

Use portrait mode when there are clear edges on your subject (a person standing against a uniform background). Don't use it for things with complex outlines (people in front of a chain-link fence, animals with fluffy fur). The effect breaks down in those cases.

What I would not buy

Tripods, lens attachments, ring lights, and other accessories that promise to "improve your smartphone photography" — almost none of them are necessary for the kinds of photographs most seniors actually take. If you find yourself doing real product photography for an online store, the gear discussion changes. For grandchildren in the back yard, the phone is more than enough.

One exception: a small flexible tripod (around $20) is useful if you want to take group photos that include yourself. Set the phone on the tripod, set the camera's self-timer to ten seconds, push the button, and walk into the frame. Better than the alternative of asking a stranger.

The photograph I took yesterday

My grandson, age four, in the kitchen. He was standing on a chair helping my wife stir cake batter. The light from the window behind me. I got close — close enough that he was looking up at me. I tapped his face on the screen to focus. He laughed at something my wife said. I waited one beat. I took three photographs.

The second one is sitting on my refrigerator now. It cost me nothing and ten years from now it will be the photograph my wife and I look at most. The phone in my pocket did almost all the work. The five habits made the difference between a snapshot and a picture worth keeping.

Written by Robert Sandoval. Last verified 19 June 2026.