iPhones don’t have a sports mode, but instead you can try burst mode, which you’ll also find on most Androids. It takes a bunch of photos in quick succession with short shutter speeds, perfect for when you’re trying to catch a dog mid-run or a cat darting after a toy, giving you a selection of action shots to choose from.

The caveat is that shorter shutter speeds mean less light capture. That’s usually fine in bright daylight, but in dimmer lighting — and sometimes even simply if you’re indoors — quality will drop.

I took this shot of Noodle trying to grab a toy using burst mode, and it captured her crisply but introduced a whole lot of noise into the black parts of my computer displays behind her. Noodle looks great here, incredibly crisp for a cat mid-movement, but using burst mode introduced a lot of noise elsewhere.

You might also want to think about aperture. Pet photos are just like any portrait and often benefit from a blurred background that helps draw attention to the subject.

Phones can add this bokeh effect through portrait mode, but if you’re tweaking manually, then dropping the aperture will get the right result. Just don’t drop it too far — most pets have deeper faces than humans, and too wide an aperture risks leaving their nose in focus while the ears are blurry.

6 is about right; play around to find what works. Switching to a telephoto lens, whether on a real camera or on your phone, can help a portrait pop a little more, and has the added bonus of letting you shoot from a distance, reducing the odds that you’ll ruin the moment in your attempt to get close.

Check if your phone has a dedicated telephoto lens — zooming in on the main camera won’t have the same effect. Drop to eye level1/4My neighbor’s cat proves that you don’t need two eyes for great eye contact.

Hardware and software aside, what about technique? The single biggest improvement you can make is to get on their level.

Don’t shoot your pet from standing; pop a squat and take a photo from head-on, just like you would if you were photographing a person. There’s nothing cuter than capturing big puppy-dog eyes up close.

If that’s tricky for whatever reason, try to snatch photos when your pets are elevated. My cats love to nap in raised radiator beds, and I used to photograph my parents’ Chihuahuas while they slept on the staircase.

For reptiles, rodents, and other pets in tanks or cages, this is often easier, though shooting through the glass or bars will have an impact on quality. Take them out of the tank if that’s feasible.

Shots from standing can work, but it’s rare. Your photos look less considered and lower effort, and it’s much harder to frame them against a good backdrop or get that bokeh blur.

This is a rare shot from standing that I think works well, but it’s because it let me capture more of the scenery behind Pebble. Break out the toys and treatsEven a free-spirited pet can be manipulated a little.

Treats and toys are the best ways to maneuver most animals into position and control their attention. Eye contact is one of the easiest ways to upgrade a photo, and for that you need to get your pet looking into the lens.

My go-to is shaking a rattly, colorful toy directly above the camera (or asking my partner to do it for me). Cats are tricky because they get bored quickly, so you might need a variety of toys within easy reach to keep their attention.

Direct eye contact can produce brilliant photos, but some of my favorites have the cats looking off at an angle. The key is to make sure you’re still capturing their eyes, whether it’s head-on or not, and that they’re looking roughly toward the brightest light around.

Noodle isn’t looking at the camera here, but she’s facing the window, the main light source in the room. Treat them like a wild animalOne of the classic mistakes is treating pets like kids: a little unpredictable but fundamentally capable of being controlled.

Instead, treat them like wild animals. Don’t go breaking out a pith helmet just yet, but try to photograph them on their own terms.

You know when your dog is likely to be sleepy, so get that dozy shot when it’s naptime. If your cat loves to sprawl in sunbeams, wait for the light to get right and let them pose themselves.

Noodle and Loaf always get the zoomies at night, so I know that’s when to nab playtime photos. You’ll know your own pets best, so plan around their habits.

My view on this is obviously shaped by owning cats, and before them several badly trained Chihuahuas. If you have a pet that’s better at following instructions, then by all means take advantage.

Either way, you’re guaranteed to take a load of terrible photos. You’ll get blurry ones because they moved too fast.

You’ll get derpy ones because they yawned at just the wrong moment. You’ll get more direct shots of their ass than you’re entirely comfortable with.

Accept these facts. Make your peace with the bad shots and the buttholes, because you’ll have to get through them to get the perfect photo.

And hey, sometimes the derpy ones end up being your favorites anyway. Loaf is such an elegant creature.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The VergeFollow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

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