How to Photograph Your Own Anniversary

Look back through your phone at last year’s anniversary. There is probably a photograph of the dessert, a blurry one of the restaurant, a selfie taken at arm’s length in bad light, and very possibly nothing at all of the two of you together, properly, looking like yourselves. One of you was always holding the phone.

This is worth fixing, and not only for the day itself. The photographs from each anniversary, kept year after year, are what a tenth-anniversary book is made from. A few minutes of planning turns a day of random snaps into two or three photographs worth printing, every year.

The photographs worth taking

You do not need many. You need the right few.

1. The two of you, properly. Standing or sitting together, both faces clear, in good light, not at arm’s length. This is the one that is always missing and the one that matters most.
2. The yearly photograph. The same spot, the same pose, every anniversary. After five years it is the most interesting set of pictures you own.
3. The place. A wide photograph of where you spent the day — the hill station, the terrace, the restaurant, your own living room with the flowers on the table.
4. A detail. Your hands, the rings, the mehendi if there is any, the two cups of coffee. Details give a printed page variety.
5. Something from the day that nobody would think to photograph. Getting ready, the drive, the moment one of you got lost looking for the restaurant.
6. A recreation. Once in a while, recreate a photograph from your first year — same pose, same place if you can get there. Printed side by side, it makes a page worth lingering on.

Six photographs, of which two or three will be good. That is enough.

Getting both of you in the frame

This is the whole problem, and there are three good ways round it.

A phone stand and the self-timer. A small tripod or phone stand costs very little and solves the problem permanently. Use the back camera, set the timer to ten seconds, and turn on burst or multi-shot if your phone has it, so each press gives you several frames to choose from. Many phones can also take the picture with a gesture, a voice command or a small Bluetooth remote.

The back camera, not the selfie camera. On many phones the front camera has fewer pixels, and at arm’s length the short distance enlarges whatever is closest to it — usually a nose or a forehead. The back camera from a couple of metres away gives a truer, sharper picture that prints far better.

Ask someone, and set it up for them. A waiter, another couple, a passer-by at a viewpoint. Most people are happy to help, but few will frame the photograph well unless you do it for them:

• Frame the shot yourself first, and show them exactly what should be in it.
• Tap the screen on the spot where your faces will be, so the focus is right.
• Ask for several, in both upright and sideways, and a couple of steps closer for the last few.
• Check them before they walk away.

Light, which decides everything

Most anniversary photographs are taken in the evening, indoors, in warm restaurant light — the hardest conditions for a phone. The pictures come out grainy, soft and orange, and they print more orange still.

• Step outside before the light goes. The half-hour before sunset is the most flattering light there is. Take the photograph of the two of you then, before dinner, and let the evening be for eating.
• Face the window. Indoors in the day, sit or stand facing a window with the light on your faces, not behind you.
• Avoid the light directly overhead. It puts shadows under eyes. Move one step to the side, or out from under the lamp.
• In the evening, hold still. Night modes combine several frames and need the phone steady, which is one more reason to use a stand.

Why indoor photos print orange →

Looking natural, which is harder than it sounds

Two people standing side by side and smiling at a phone look like a passport queue. A few ways to get photographs that look like you:

• Talk to each other. Take the photographs while you are actually talking, not while you wait for the timer.
• Walk towards the camera on a quiet path, holding hands, and let the burst run.
• Look at each other, then at the camera. The frame just before one of you turns is often the best of the set.
• Take twenty, keep two. The good ones are rarely the first ones.

Before you move on, zoom in on the faces. Eyes open, sharp, nobody mid-sentence. A photograph that looks fine small on the screen can be soft when it is printed at half a page.

Choosing between two similar photographs →

The yearly photograph, for couples

A photograph taken in the same place and the same way every year is the easiest tradition to keep, and it becomes the backbone of any anniversary book later.

For a couple, three things make it work:

• Choose a spot you will be at every year. Your front door, your balcony, the steps of the building. A holiday destination changes every year; home does not.
• Keep the pose simple. Standing side by side, or sitting on the same step. Something you can repeat without looking at last year’s photograph.
• Take it on the day, whatever the day turns into. If the anniversary falls on a busy work day, take it in the morning before you leave. A series is at its best with no year missing.

The detailed setup — marking the spot, fixing the height of the phone, choosing the lens — is the same as for a family series.

How to start a family photo tradition →

When there are children

After the first year with a baby, anniversary photographs tend to become photographs of the baby. That is lovely, but keep one frame a year that is only the two of you. A few years later, it is the photograph you will be glad someone insisted on.

When the whole family is there

In many families an anniversary is not a dinner for two but a family occasion — a puja in the morning, a cake at home, parents and siblings over for lunch. Everyone takes photographs, and the couple end up in the background of all of them, usually busy serving food.

• Hand the phone to someone and give them a job. A teenage nephew or niece with clear instructions (“five of the two of us by the window, now”) does better than an adult who is also trying to eat.
• Take one photograph with each set of parents. It is the frame everyone wants a copy of, and it is rarely taken without someone deciding to.
• Ask everyone to share their photographs as documents the same evening, before they are lost in a family group chat and its compression.

How to send photos without losing quality →

Keeping them, and printing them

Photographs from each anniversary disappear into the phone within a week unless you do something with them.

• Make a folder every year — “Anniversary 2026” — and move the keepers into it that night.
• Back up the originals. A photograph saved only on one phone is one lost phone away from gone.
• Print something each year, or save for a milestone. At five or ten years, the folders become a book.

In a ten-year book, three or four anniversary photographs from each year fill a satisfying section, with the rest of the book for everything in between.

Balancing photos across years → Anniversary photo books, year by year → Anniversary Magazine → Anniversary gifts →

Frequently asked

How do we take good photos of both of us on our anniversary? Use a phone stand and the self-timer with the back camera, or ask someone and frame the shot for them first. Take several, and check the faces before you move on.

What anniversary photos should we take every year? One photograph of the two of you in the same place and the same pose, plus a few of the day. After five years, the yearly one is the most interesting set you own.

Why do our anniversary dinner photos look bad? Warm, dim restaurant light makes phone photographs grainy and orange. Take the photograph of the two of you outside before sunset, and hold the phone steady in the evening.

Should we use the front or the back camera? The back camera, from a couple of metres away, on a stand or held by someone else. On many phones the front camera is less sharp and distorts faces at arm’s length.