If you’re nothing like me, you probably have a nice phone with a more-than-decent camera. You take thousands of pictures of your kids everyday, but you find the results are hit-or-miss at best. You want to become more consistent and minimize the frustration of botching shots of precious moments.

I’m going to go over some tips on how to get better photos using your phone’s camera, and hopefully I won’t get too technical, so that you actually feel encouraged to shoot better, rather than just more.

Let me preface this by saying everything here is not a rule. Some are principles and definitions, some are guidelines, some are common sense, and some are just my personal opinion.