What should I tell someone taking my picture?

Five things, in order: hold the phone upright at my hip height, keep my feet in the frame with a little room under them, keep shooting until I say stop, stay where you are while I move, and show me the last few frames. Choose the lens and the framing yourself before you hand the phone over.

How do I get my partner to take better photos of me?

Make it quick and the same every time. Pick the spot and the light, frame the shot yourself, show them one reference photo and ask for one round of burst shots. Look at the frames together, change one thing, and stop while it's still fun. After a few shoots the script becomes a habit for both of you.

Why do photos other people take of me make my legs look short?

Most people shoot from their own eye height and tip the phone down toward you. For a full-length photo, ask them to lower the phone to your hip height, hold it upright and keep your shoes in the frame.

How to teach someone to take good pictures of you

To get someone to take good pictures of you, do the setup yourself and give them a short script. Choose the spot and the light, frame the shot, and show them the photo you’re going for. Then hand over the phone with five lines: hold it here, keep my feet in, keep shooting, stay put while I move, and show me.

Most people who take disappointing photos of you aren’t bad photographers. They just can’t see the picture in your head. Everything below is about closing that gap in about a minute.

Why other people’s photos of you miss

They shoot from their own eye height. The phone points down at you, the ground takes over the bottom of the frame and your legs look shorter than they are.
They put your face in the middle. Your head lands in the center of the frame, so your feet fall off the bottom edge.
They take one photo. A single tap catches the blink, the half-step or the moment you were about to laugh.
They wait for you to be ready. So you freeze, and the photo looks stiff.

None of these is about talent. Each one goes away with a single line of direction.

Before you hand over the phone

Do this part yourself. It takes about a minute and removes most of the guesswork.

Choose the light. Face a window or a low sun off to one side, or stand in open shade. Your helper can’t fix light that’s behind you.
Choose the lens. Use 1x for most photos. If you want 0.5x to fit a big scene in, say so, and ask them to keep you in the middle of the frame, where the ultra-wide lens stretches you least.
Turn on the grid. On iPhone it’s in Settings > Camera > Grid. It gives you both the same reference: “my feet on the bottom line” means the same thing to each of you.
Frame it once, from where they’ll stand. Hold the phone at the height you want, look at the frame, then hand it over in exactly that position.
Show them one reference. One photo, not a board of twenty. Point at two things in it: where the person’s feet are in the frame, and where the horizon crosses their body, which tells you how high the camera was.

The 5-line script

Say these once, in this order. Each line fixes one of the misses above.

“Hold it here.” Put the phone at the height you framed it: about hip height for a full-length photo, chest height for waist-up. If your helper is tall, ask them to bend their knees rather than tip the phone. Upright, not tilted.
“Feet in, a little room under them.” The bottom of the frame sits just below your shoes, with some space above your head. If they need a marker, use the grid: “keep my feet on the bottom line.”
“Keep shooting till I say stop.” Ask for burst or steady tapping. On iPhone, burst is a swipe of the shutter button to the left, held down. Thirty frames of you moving give you more to choose from than three of you standing still.
“Stay put. I’ll move.” If they wander, the framing you set is gone. The moving is your job: shift your weight, turn, look away and back.
“Show me.” After each round, look at the last few frames together and decide on one change.

It helps to say why, once: “Lower makes my legs look longer” lands better than “lower” on its own, and people remember a reason.

Show them the picture, not a description

“Can you get it a bit lower and more to the left” means very little to someone who isn’t in your head. A photo does the explaining for you. There are two ways to use one:

A screenshot, shown before you hand the phone over. It works, but your helper then shoots from memory, and most people forget the framing within a round or two.
An overlay, on screen while they shoot. In Onpose, you open the pose, either one from its library or a photo you’ve saved, and it sits semi-transparent over the live camera. The person holding the phone can see where you should be standing and how big you should be in the frame, so their only job is to keep you lined up with the figure.

The pose overlay camera guide explains how these apps work, which ones do it, and when the built-in camera is all you need.

Giving notes during the shoot

One note per round. “Lower” is easy to act on. “Lower, step back and get more of the tree in” usually gets you one of the three.
Use landmarks, not left and right. Their left is your right. “Move toward the door” or “more of the bridge above me” can’t be misread.
Ask for steps, not zoom. If you’re too big in the frame, “take two steps back” keeps the lens the same. Pinch-zooming between the lens buttons crops the image digitally and can soften it.
Fix the camera before the pose. If a frame looks wrong, check the phone height and the distance before you change what your body is doing. The camera is usually the problem.
Say what’s working. “That height is perfect, keep it there” gets repeated. Only correcting gets you a nervous photographer.

Directing a partner, a friend or a stranger

A partner or a close friend. Use the same script every time and it turns into a habit for both of you. Keep each round to a minute or two, look at the frames together, and stop before it becomes a chore. Offer to take theirs in return; it’s easier to ask next time. For photos of the two of you together, couple poses covers shooting with nobody behind the phone.

A friend you’re posing with. If you’re both in the shot, nobody is checking the frame. Either prop the phone and use the timer, or hand it to a third person with the same script. Who stands where, and how to run the timer for two, is in the poses with friends.

A stranger. Set everything up first, including focus: touch and hold the spot where you’ll stand until AE/AF Lock appears, so the camera doesn’t refocus on the background. Then keep it to two lines: “Hold it right here, and keep tapping until I wave.” Thank them, and offer to take theirs.

What to say when you see…

In the photo	What’s happening	What to say
Legs look short, lots of ground	Phone too high and tipped down	“Lower, to my hips, and hold it straight”
Feet cut off	Framing built around your face	“Feet in, a little space under them”
Head jammed against the top	Too close	“Take two steps back”
A blink or a half-step in every frame	Single taps	“Swipe the button left and hold it this time”
Background on a slant	Phone tilted sideways	“Keep the grid lines straight with the door”
You look stiff	They waited for you to stop moving	“Start now, I’ll keep moving”
Face in shadow	Light behind you	Nothing to them: turn yourself toward the light

The script covers the camera. For the posing side, the body angles, hands and light it assumes, read how to pose for pictures. If nobody is around to take the photo at all, how to take pictures of yourself covers propping the phone and the timer.