Photo guides
How to get your boyfriend to take good photos of you
He isn't bad at it on purpose. Nobody ever told him where you go in the picture, and "just take a nice one" doesn't tell him either.
The short version
- Top of your head goes on, or a little above, the upper grid line.
- Tell him where the photo ends: your feet, your waist, or the table edge.
- Phone vertical, held around your chest height, kept level.
- Ask for ten shots, and move a little between each one.
You hand him the phone, find your pose, and get back twelve photos with your face in the dead centre, a big empty strip of sky above you and your feet cut off at the ankles. Almost every bad photo from a partner, friend or stranger has the same two problems: your head is in the wrong place, and the photo ends in the wrong place. Fix those two and most of the rest follows.
Tell him where your head goes
People taking a photo of someone put the face in the middle of the screen, because that's where the eye goes first. In a photo of a whole person, that pushes your body off the bottom of the frame and fills the top half with nothing.
Ask him to turn on the grid first. On an iPhone it's in the Settings app, under Camera, then Grid. Turn on Level in the same place, which we'll come back to. Then give him one instruction: the top of your head sits on the upper grid line, or a little above it. That moves you up the frame, and to keep you in shot he'll step back until the rest of you fits. Most of the time he gets the distance right without being told.
Tell him where the photo ends
This is the instruction people skip, and it's the one that decides what kind of photo you get. Pick the shot before you hand the phone over, then name the place where it stops.
- Full body. Your feet are in the photo, close to the bottom edge. Not cut at the ankles, and not floating above a metre of pavement.
- Mid body. The photo ends at your waist or the top of your thighs. Good for outfits and street photos where the background matters. Ask for a clean cut at the waist, because a photo that stops at the knees looks like a mistake.
- Seated at a table. The table edge runs across the lower part of the photo, with the drinks or plates in front of you and some of the room behind and above you.
Say it as two landmarks he can check against the screen: "head on the top line, feet at the bottom." A noun he can line up with is easier to follow than a description of the photo you're picturing.
The same two marks, three different photos. Only the bottom mark changes.
Keep the phone at chest height, and level
Most people hold the phone at their own eye level and tilt it down at you. A taller partner shooting downward squashes everything below your head and fills the bottom of the photo with ground. Ask him to lower the phone to around your chest and keep it pointing straight at you, not angled down.
The Level setting from earlier helps here. When the phone is close to straight, a short line appears in the middle of the screen and turns yellow once it's level. A tilted horizon is the easiest flaw to spot in a holiday photo, and this fixes it.
Ask for ten, and move between them
One photo gives him one chance to get it right. Ask for a run of shots instead, and change something small between each: shift your weight, look away, laugh at something, turn a little. Out of ten you'll usually get one or two you actually want, and he doesn't have to get the timing perfect.
Show him a photo you like first
Before you hand the phone over, show him a photo with the framing you want, from your camera roll, Pinterest or a friend's post. It takes ten seconds and settles what "good" means before you start. If the two of you disagree, it's your photo, so your version wins.
Put the light beside you, not behind you
If the sun is behind you, the phone exposes for the bright sky and your face goes dark. Directly overhead at midday, it throws hard shadows under your eyes. Turn so the light falls on you from the side or the front, step into open shade, or wait for the softer light of late afternoon.
What if he still can't get it right?
Even with all of this, there's one problem left. He's looking at a small screen while you're three metres away, and you can't see what he sees. You call out "lower", he moves the wrong way, and a dinner photo turns into an argument.
We built Goodside for exactly that moment. You choose the framing before you hand over your phone: a shot type, one of 127 ready-made framings, or one of your own photos. Goodside then puts two marks on his screen, "Top of head" and where the photo ends. He lines you up with the marks and taps the shutter. Nobody has to shout directions across the street, and your photos never leave your phone.