Here are my top tips for taking better photos of your pet with your phone.

1. Get down to their level.
Crouch, sit, or even lie on the ground. Shooting from your pet’s eye level makes your photos feel more personal and helps show off their expressions. It’s a simple trick that instantly improves your composition. Standing over your pet and shooting down can be a great photo but unless you emphasis it the image is just sort of boring.

2. Use natural light
Avoid using your flash. A flash can be harsh and distracting. You also risk those glowing demon eyes. Instead, take photos near a window or head outside. Overcast days are great too, giving you soft, even lighting with no harsh shadows. Always try to put the light on your pet in a flattering way. Have it add a rim about them. Maybe it just hits them in the face and falls off. There are many interesting way to play with the light. But when in doubt just have it fall evening on their face and into their eyes. Feel free to use the exposure bar on your phone. Drag it to the left to darken an image and the right to brighten an image.

3. Focus on the eyes.
Just like with people, your pet’s eyes are the most expressive part. Tap on their eyes on your phone screen before you snap the photo. A sharp eye pulls the whole image together and makes it more emotionally engaging.

4. Use Portrait Mode (but not all the time).
Portrait Mode on most phones adds a nice background blur (also called bokeh), helping your pet pop from the background. It works best when your pet is sitting fairly still and there’s some distance between them and the background.
But don’t rely on it every time. Sometimes it misfires, especially if the light is lower or your pet is moving fast. Try a few shots with and without it to see what works best.

5. Be careful with the zoom.
Zooming in can make your photos look grainy or soft. Phone camera don't have the same ability as a professional lens. The are less stable and focus is easily dropped. If you want a closer shot, take a few steps forward instead. Or shoot wide and crop later; you’ll keep more image quality that way.

6. Use the editing feature in your phone.
Your camera app has the ability to edit your images. You can crop, warm up the over all temperature of an image, adjust your exposure, and you can even brighten shadows. Done be afraid to play around. Most systems allow you to revert to the original. A nice safety in case your experiment goes sideways.

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to play with it. Try interesting crops. Take close ups of faces and tails. Those details will mean the world to you one day. Have fun! As long as you have storage space keep taking those photos. ;)

Here are some examples pulled from my cell phone. Just a few. I could have went down the rabbit hole for days. I have so many phone images as you can imagine. I have also added descriptions to help get you thinking about your own pet photos.

I found it very interesting how the camera frame changed over the years. My earlier phones were very long and narrow. My phone today is similar to the frame of my DSLR.