Sometimes you just don’t have time to book an appointment with a family photographer. Sometimes plans fall through, kids get sick and schedules fill up. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on the family holiday photo.

Here’s how you can take a great family photo with your smartphone.

Location, Location

Outdoors: If you’re looking for an outdoorsy photo, consider adding an extra layer of meaning by taking the photo at a park the family loves or on a trail.

Indoors: With a few environmental tweaks, you can take a photo to remember in your own home. Some potential home photo locations include the front steps, a porch bench, indoor stairs and even the couch!

Outfits

While it can be tempting to buy the same blue button-up in five different sizes, consider coordinating outfits instead of matching.

By coordinating, individual personalities can shine through, kids are more comfortable and the final result will be more visually interesting. That said, here are some general guidelines.

Do: Dress for the weather, wear clothes with different textures, wear light accessories, use layers, consider socks and shoes, empty your pockets.

Don’t: Wear neon, wear prominent logos, wear checker patterns.

Light & Height

If you plan to take photos outdoors, you’ll need to consider the time of day and where the sun will be. Taking your photos during the golden hour (shortly after sunrise or before sunset) will provide soft, warm natural light.

In general, you’ll want to position the phone at eye level about 10 feet away from the family.

Composition

The biggest factor in planning your composition is family size. How many children need to fit in the frame? How tall are they?

Some composition strategies include using the stairs or a slope to have everyone’s heads at the same height, having parents hold very young children and positioning the other children in front of the parents, having the tallest person stand in the back left of the shot and placing the rest of the family in descending order by height or staggering heights between taller and shorter members of the family. Arrange your family to fill the frame.

There are lots of ways to take a visually interesting family photo, so have fun with it! Try out a few different arrangements, search for ideas online and let the kids direct a shot or two!

Settings

Many smartphones have a portrait setting that works well for portrait-style photography. But if yours doesn’t, it’s not cause for panic.

While you might not think your smartphone affords as much control as a DSLR when it comes to settings, there are apps available that allow you to take manual control of your camera to control things such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

Kids tend to get squirmy; they move around a lot and that can lead to blurry photos if your shutter speed isn’t high enough. Try a shutter speed of 1/250, an ISO between 100 and 400 and an aperture between f/5.6 and f/8.

In Post

If you love everything about a photo but it still feels like it’s missing that professional touch, try playing around with photo editors. Many simple photo editors are free, and you can use them to adjust brightness, shadows, color and to remove blemishes.