Stop zooming, start walking

Your phone is a better camera than you think. Most disappointing photos come down to light, distance and a dirty lens, not to the hardware. A few habits fix nearly all of them.

Here are the photos that made it into the book. Tap any of them to see it larger.

Why it works

None of this needs an app or an accessory. It only needs a moment of attention before you press the button.

If you try only one thing this month, try this one. It takes no time and the difference shows up on the first page of the book.

• Leave the cover for last
• Keep one photo per day at most
• Pick a fixed day each month

A few small rules

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.

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

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

Leila, who writes every caption by hand

When to stop

Ask someone else to look at your shortlist. They will spot the photo you were about to drop and the one you only kept out of habit.

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.

Before you start: make sure your phone is backed up. Deleting is easier when nothing can be lost.

One more thing

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.

Do not be afraid of imperfect photos. A little blur or a stray elbow often tells you more about the day than a tidy, posed shot.

• Leave the cover for last
• Pick a fixed day each month
• Back up before deleting anything

What we got wrong

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

Keep the rejected photos somewhere safe for a while. Tastes change, and a picture you passed over may be the one you want next year.

We don’t take more photos than we used to. We just look at them now.

Ana, a reader since the first year

Keep it simple

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.

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.

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

Make it a habit

Do not forget the in-between moments: the car park before the party, the coats piled on a chair, the walk home in the dark. They are the parts of a day that nobody photographs on purpose and everybody recognises straight away.

Delete duplicates as you go rather than saving them for later. Later rarely comes, and a cleaner camera roll makes picking much easier.

• Star photos as you take them
• Leave the cover for last
• Include at least one place, not just faces

Start with what you already have

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.

On the second pass, look for variety. A month of the same room and the same faces feels flat, even if each photo is lovely on its own.

I thought I needed a better camera. I needed a better window.

Tom Okafor, Paperleaf

What to look for

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

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.

Quick tip: star photos on your phone as you take them. Picking takes half the time at the end of the month.

Try it this month

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

Watch the light at different times of day in your own home. Most houses have one window that is lovely for an hour every afternoon.

• Include at least one place, not just faces
• Write a few words beside the best ones
• Star photos as you take them

Why it works

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.

Write the year on the spine. It sounds obvious, but without it a shelf of books quickly becomes a puzzle.

We don’t take more photos than we used to. We just look at them now.

Ana, a reader since the first year

A few small rules

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.

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

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

When to stop

Quiet months are worth printing too. A month with no trips and no birthdays often turns into the book people return to, because it shows what ordinary life looked like before it changed.

Leave a little space. Not every page needs to be full, and an empty corner gives the eye somewhere to rest.

• Back up before deleting anything
• Hand the camera to someone else
• Pick a fixed day each month

One more thing

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.

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.

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

Marcus, father of three