Photo guides
How to take good photos of your girlfriend
She hands you her phone. Here's how to give it back with photos she actually keeps.
The short version
- Ask what shot she wants before you start: full body, waist up, or seated.
- Put the top of her head near the upper grid line, not her face in the centre.
- Know where the photo ends: feet, waist, or table edge. Never mid shin or knee.
- Hold the phone around her chest height, upright and level.
- Take lots, keep shooting between poses, and show her as you go.
Most bad photos of girlfriends aren't about talent. They come from a few habits that feel natural when you're holding a phone: putting her face in the middle of the screen, shooting from your own eye level, cutting the photo off wherever it happens to end, and taking one photo. Fix those and you'll be the one she asks.
Ask what she wants first
It sounds obvious, and almost nobody does it. Ten seconds of "full body or from the waist up? Do you want the building in it?" saves ten minutes of retakes. If she has a photo in mind, ask to see it. Copying a framing she already likes is the fastest way to get it right.
Her head goes near the top line, not the centre
Turn on the grid (Settings, Camera, Grid). Your instinct will be to put her face in the middle of the screen. In a photo of a whole person, that pushes her feet off the bottom and leaves a big empty space above her. Put the top of her head on or a little above the upper grid line instead. You'll have to step back to keep her in, which is usually what the photo needed anyway.
Know where the photo ends
Every photo of a person ends somewhere, and where it ends decides what kind of photo it is.
- Full body: her feet are in the photo, just above the bottom edge, with a little ground under them. Cut-off feet are the classic partner-photo mistake.
- Waist up: end at her waist or the top of her thighs, cleanly.
- Seated at a table: let the table edge run across the lower part of the photo, with the food or drinks in it.
Avoid ending the photo at a joint, like the knees or ankles. It looks like a mistake, because it usually is.
Head near the top, and a deliberate place where the photo ends.
Hold the phone at her chest height
If you're taller than her, shooting from your own eye level means pointing the phone down. That crowds the bottom of the photo with ground and puts the camera above her looking down. Lower the phone to around her chest height and keep it pointing straight at her. Bend your knees if you need to. It feels a bit silly, and the photos are much better for it.
Keep the phone upright for photos of people unless she asks otherwise, and keep it level. Turn on Level in the same Settings screen as the grid. A line appears in the middle of the screen and turns yellow when the phone is straight.
Watch the light
If the sun is behind her, her face goes dark against a bright sky. Turn so the light falls on her from the side or the front, or move into open shade. Late afternoon light is softer than midday. In a restaurant, sit her facing the window rather than with her back to it.
Take a lot, and keep going between poses
Keep tapping the shutter while she moves. Some of the best photos happen between poses: when she laughs, adjusts her hair or looks away. Twenty photos to get two good ones is normal.
Show her as you go
After the first few, hand her the phone and let her look. She'll tell you exactly what to change, and the next round will be better. That's a better use of the shoot than finishing it and finding out at dinner that all forty were cut off at the ankles.
The easy way
If you'd rather not remember any of this, she can set it up for you. Goodside is a camera app where she picks the framing before handing you her phone: a shot type, one of 127 ready-made framings, or one of her own photos. You see two marks on the screen, "Top of head" and where the photo ends. Line her up with them and tap the shutter.