Confident creativity starts with your phone. Simple, powerful ideas to help you grow your phone photography skills, tell visual stories that matter, and unlock your creativity in everyday life. One weekly e-mail at a time.
Share
⚡Transform Your Family Photos: 4 Expert Tips
Published 10 months ago • 2 min read
LEVEL UP
YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY
with Gabrielle Touchette
In today's newsletter:
An in-person phone photography workshop in Winnipeg
4 expert tips for taking family photos with a phone
How (and where!) to print phone photos with quality
1. Workshop Announcement!
First off, I'm excited to announce that I'm hosting a rare in-person phone photography workshop at Sweet Petals Farm on Saturday September 7th!
Terry will be hosting my workshop group at her flower farm in Winnipeg. (She's the best!)
Participants will be treated to private access to Terry's farm where we'll get to walk through her flower gardens as I teach you how to take better nature photos with your phone camera. This will be a very hands on workshop with lots of practical tips and direction.
The second part of the workshop will include tips on how to edit your photos so they pop and also how to edit them for prints and cards.
Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here. – Sue Monk Kidd
2. Four tips for amazing family photos
A lot of you have been asking me: how do I take better family photos with my phone?
The answer is simple! Just follow my four top tips:
Choose soft, even lighting. Put the family in full shade and make sure there are no sun spots or shadows landing on anyone.
Find a simple, non-distracting background. Sometimes we are drawn to really "pretty" backgrounds like a flower bed or an elaborate garden. While these may be pretty to look at, they don't always work well as a background for people photos. I recommend finding clean, simple backgrounds so that your subject's face stands out.
Make it quick. Don't spend too much time trying to make young kids smile. Start with one quick pose with everyone looking at the camera and (hopefully!) smiling. Kids have a short attention span, so quickly move on to the next pose: something fun, wacky or super playful. That will get you genuine smiles from even the youngest kids. The quicker you can take the photo, the more genuine the smiles will be!
Edit your photos in Lightroom. I increase contrast, brightness and sharpness. I also increase the colour saturation a bit. For extra fun, you can select just the background (using the masking tool in Lightroom) and make it more bright, so that your subject pops out even more:
Masking the background allows you to edit just that area without affecting the rest of the image.
For a detailed tutorial and the exact settings I used to edit these photos, watch my new Patreon how-to video here:
There's nothing like having your digital photos in print form. In this blog post, I share the step-by-step process for preparing your phone snapshots into stunning, high-quality prints.
All you need is any phone, Lightroom Mobile, and access to the internet. I share where I upload my photos and print them at one of my favourite photo labs:
Confident creativity starts with your phone. Simple, powerful ideas to help you grow your phone photography skills, tell visual stories that matter, and unlock your creativity in everyday life. One weekly e-mail at a time.
LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Welcome to Week 27 of 2025! In today's e-mail, you'll get: TIP OF THE WEEK: An Advanced Lighting Lesson PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Waiting For The Decisive Moment RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE: A Visual and Sound Feast in Paris TIP OF THE WEEK Manipulating Available Light I think you're ready for a more advanced lighting lesson today. I'll show you how to control natural light so you can create the exact look you want for your flatlay photos....
LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Welcome to Week 26 of 2025! In today's e-mail, you'll get: TIP OF THE WEEK: The Top 3 Food Photography Tips That Professionals Use PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Going 2D to 3D With Light & Dark Tones RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE: What the World's Biggest Digital Camera Is Looking At TIP OF THE WEEK How the Pros Do Food Photography Attention all you food lovers! Today I'm sharing my go-to techniques for better food photos. Here are my 3 favourite...
LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Welcome to Week 25 of 2025! In today's e-mail, you'll get: TIP OF THE WEEK: Ditch the Checklist. Follow the Story. PHOTO OF THE WEEK: This Photo Wasn't on the Shot List RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE: AI-Generated Photo Prompts for Creative Shoots TIP OF THE WEEK Ditch the Checklist. Follow the Story. What you shoot is just as important as how you shoot. Sometimes we can focus so much on the technical aspects of how to take a good photo...