How to take great Mom photos on your phone: Mother's Day

Make her Look Great on Sunday, and every day

Sam Graham, Judy Graham and Nagisa Kamae

I’ve pulled this classic from the archives, as the topic never goes out of style. Not as long as we have Mother’s Day holidays, and moms in our life to photograph.

Mother’s Day is about a few things: flowers, lunch or dinner together, and of course, family photo time, a good opportunity to update the archive with images of us all together again.

We all have a camera in our pocket, the smartphone, so getting it done is easier than ever. But how to prevent poor images from being taken, and make everyone look good?

Thanks for asking. You’ve come to the right place.

Some tips:

INDOOR OR OUTDOOR?

You can take the photos inside, and deal with poor lighting, and clutter in every which way. Or you could go outside and take advantage of the greatest natural light source, available light. If you can swing it, take people out there, preferably with green shrubbery as your backdrop and snap away. Remember my most important portrait tip: shade is your best friend.

SHADE

Direct sunlight makes sun splotches on your face and creates heavy shadows. Look for the shade, where light is even and flattering, whether that’s in the morning on one side of the street, or later in the day on both sides. Try Portrait mode on your smartphone to blur the background.

Bad direct sun in Flagstaff, Arizona

And what if you have to shoot inside?

Have the light behind you

Get mom lit by the window, in other words, with the light behind you as you photograph. If tried this other way around, mom would be a silhouette, since the camera would expose for the window instead of her.

Before and after: below is more people pleasing, right?

Use a non-cluttered background

Seeing trees growing from mom’s head is no fun, nor is a photo of her kitchen surrounded by chairs, the newspaper, pots and pans and all the other things that live there. Focus on mom and the family, without having our eyes strain to take in all the other stuff. That’s why I've always been a big proponent of clutter-free portraits.

If you are in the kitchen, try for as little distraction as possible. Or move to at the very least, a wall that’s not ripe with distraction, one with one piece of art up there. Try to frame your shot this way, and bring the family into the middle of the room, to blur the background. If Mom is right in front of the wall, there’s no blur.

Find chairs

If the group is larger than a few people, put mom and others in a chair, and have the group gather to the side and behind her. This way you can see everyone’s face.

Posing with chairs

Don’t look up at mom, look down

Looking up at a subject is one of the biggest no-nos. It accentuates the negatives and forgets the positives, namely chicken necks and spots no one ever knew existed. Look down, however, and all those problems disappear. The camera needs to be eye-level and distortion free with your subject.

Get down with mom

See this example of our friend Alia posing with daughter Esme? At first, super-tall Alia (from her daughters’ perspective) towers over her. I prefer seeing the faces on the same plane, which is simple to do. I just asked Alia to kneel down to Esme’s height. The same thing could be done with the chair technique.

Family groups, combos+

Get mom and the kids. Mom and each kid. Every conceivable combination please. You’ll be glad you did.

How to interview Mom

You’ve heard me talk for eons about the joys of sitting down with mom on Mother’s Day and interviewing her about her life. This is really easy to do, and I can give you links to lengthy pieces I’ve done on the subject:

ONE

TWO

Short version. All you need is:

• A smartphone, any make, any model.

• Mini tripod. You can’t hand hold the camera and keep it steady for an extended length of time. I love the the $25 Insta360 Selfie Stick tripod, since it doubles as an extender, and has legs that will let you set it up, at eye level, for your Mom interview. You’ll also need a smartphone tripod adapter, which will set you back around $20. Or, you can buy a “Cage” that snaps to the top of the tripod/stick. I like this SmallRig model, which sells for just over $35.

• Quiet room. While I want you to use a microphone, since it adds so greatly to the quality of the production, my guess is you don’t have one. (If you do buy one, I like Rode Wireless Micro, which sells for just over $138. It plugs directly into the phone, and does a yeoman’s job. I use them for all the interviews I do for PhotowalksTV.

• If you don’t have a mic, bring mom into a quiet (clutter-free) room, and close the door. The internal mic tends to pick up every sound—from the bus or cars outside the window, to the TV and other people talking. With the door closed, hopefully it will just record you and mom. Questions about what questions to ask? Just click reply. I’ll give you a whole bunch to get started with.

• Happy Mother’s Day to All!

  

Dumb article of the week

The New York Times Wirecutter released a seemingly sensible story about how comedian Conan O’Brien, who is plugging his latest travel series for Max, travels light with a carry-on bag and few changes of clothes. Sound great. I’m all for it.

But he’s traveling for a travel TV show, to many different countries, and has to appear on camera in multiple episodes. One pair of jeans and a T-shirt and that’s it? No coat? No hats?

Ahem…his staff sends his work clothes ahead of time. It’s all there in this silly article.

Here It Is, near Joseph City, Arizona

As you read this, we are one day from completing the 3 week, 2,500 mile, 8-state centennial journey down Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles, and I’ll have lots to tell you in the coming weeks about what we learned about the country, the people and the amazing sights out there.

Jeff