Find the frame inside the frame

Good photos are mostly about seeing, not about settings. Before you lift the phone, notice where the light is coming from and what sits behind your subject. Those two things decide most pictures.

This is how the two pictures sit together on one spread.

What we got wrong

Try this at home first, where you can take your time. It soon becomes a habit you use without thinking.

Small changes in where you stand make big changes in the picture. Move a step before you change anything else.

• Back up before deleting anything
• Include at least one place, not just faces
• Keep one photo per day at most

Start with what you already have

Keep a note of what happened that month as you go. A few words beside a photo are worth far more than you expect a year later.

Set aside a fixed time for it. The last Sunday of the month works for a lot of readers because the week is quiet and the month is complete.

The book comes, and for one evening nobody looks at their phone.

Marcus, father of three

Make it a habit

If you miss a month, do not try to catch up all at once. Start again with this month and fill the gap later if you feel like it.

Think about how the photos sit next to each other. Two busy pictures side by side can fight; a busy one beside a quiet one usually works.

Reader tip: one family keeps a paper list on the fridge of moments they want in the next book.

Try it this month

Try to include everyone. It is easy to end up with a book full of the children and none of the person holding the camera.

Try not to edit every photo. A little brightening is fine, but heavy filters date quickly and make a year of books look uneven when they sit together on a shelf. Let the light of the day show.

• Pick a fixed day each month
• Back up before deleting anything
• Include at least one place, not just faces

A few small rules

Some readers keep a short list of rules on a sticky note beside the computer. Ours says: faces first, then places, then anything that made us laugh. It is not scientific, but it stops the session turning into an evening of second-guessing.

Back up before you delete anything. It takes a minute and removes the fear that stops people from clearing out at all.

Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.

Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room

Why it works

Be generous on the first pass. You are not deciding what goes in the book yet, only what is definitely out.

Share the book when it arrives. Leaving it on the kitchen table for a day is often enough for everyone to have a look.

Good to know: every Paperleaf book has room for thirty photos, so there is no prize for keeping more.

What to look for

Look back at last year’s book before you start this month’s. It reminds you what you enjoyed seeing again and what you skipped past, which makes this month’s choices quicker and kinder.

Take one photo before the moment and one after. The before and after often say more than the moment itself.

• Leave the cover for last
• Write a few words beside the best ones
• Hand the camera to someone else

One more thing

Keep the phone charged and the lens clean on days you expect to matter. It sounds small, but a flat battery or a smudged lens has cost more good pictures than any missing piece of equipment.

Hand the phone to someone else at least once a month. It is the only way the photographer gets into the book.

Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.

Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room

Keep it simple

If a month feels thin, look again at the photos you took without thinking. The best ones are often hiding there.

Do not wait for a special occasion. The ordinary weeks are the ones people forget, and the ones they most want to see again.

Reader tip: one family keeps a paper list on the fridge of moments they want in the next book.

When to stop

Faces matter, but so do places. Include at least one picture of the room, the street or the view where the month happened.

Make a cup of tea, sit somewhere comfortable and put the phone on do-not-disturb. The job goes faster when it does not compete with messages.

• Include at least one place, not just faces
• Star photos as you take them
• Pick a fixed day each month

What we got wrong

A good caption answers the question someone will ask in twenty years. Who is that? Where were we? Why is everyone wet? Write the answer while you still know it, even if it feels too obvious to bother with today.

If you share a camera roll with someone, agree on who picks which month. Taking turns means each book has a slightly different point of view, and nobody ends up doing all of the work every time.

My mum reads the captions more than she looks at the pictures.

Leila, who writes every caption by hand

Start with what you already have

If two photos are nearly the same, keep the one where someone is doing something. A raised hand, a turned head or a half-finished sentence gives a picture life that a perfectly still pose rarely has, even when the still one is technically better.