Look through your photos from the last five years and count how many contain your closest friends. For most people the number is surprisingly low - and lower still if you exclude group shots from weddings, birthdays and other people's events.
This is a real gap and it has a simple cause. Romantic relationships get documented because there are occasions built into them. Family gets documented because families take photographs at Christmas. Friendship has no equivalent structure. There is no anniversary, no annual portrait, no moment where somebody says "we should get a photo".
So it goes unrecorded, right up until someone moves away and you realise you have almost no evidence of the years that mattered most. Here are 20 ideas for fixing that, from a single afternoon to something you keep doing for a decade.
Six ideas for the next time you are together
The unflattering one, deliberately
Four frames of the worst faces you can produce. Nobody looks good, everybody keeps it, and it is reliably the strip that gets sent back and forth for years.
Recreate a photo from years ago
Find one from school, university, or the first year you knew each other, and restage it exactly. Same positions, same hands, same terrible posture. Printed alongside the original it is the single best thing on this list.
The stack
Faces layered diagonally from front to back rather than in a row. Works for three or more, and it fills a frame far better than a line of people does.
One person, three reactions
One friend tells a story off-camera. The strip captures the other three reacting to it. Nobody poses because nobody is thinking about the camera.
Everybody's signature pose
Every group has one person who always does the same thing in photos. Four frames, each person doing somebody else's. Merciless and affectionate in equal measure.
The pile
Everyone as close to the lens as physically possible. Cheeks squashed, half a face cut off at the edge. Chaotic and warm, and it works for any number of people.
Seven ideas for friends who live far apart
Long-distance friendship is harder to maintain than long-distance romance, because nobody schedules it. Couples have standing calls; friends have a group chat that goes quiet for six weeks.
The synchronised strip
Same time, different cities, one shared booth. The strip contains both of you and neither of you is in the same country. It is a strange, good object.
Same prompt, separate strips
Agree a theme, shoot separately whenever you each get a chance, then put the two strips side by side. Works across any number of time zones because nobody has to be awake at the same moment.
The handover
One person takes a strip and sends it. The next person recreates the last frame as their own first frame. Passed around a group, it becomes a chain that eventually loops back.
Your window, my window
Both of you take a strip showing what is outside. Cities, weather, seasons on opposite sides of the world. Quietly one of the most moving things you can make.
The reunion countdown
One strip a month until you next see each other. Frame one holds up the number of weeks remaining.
Wearing something of theirs
A jumper, a jacket, something you borrowed years ago and never returned. Both take a strip in it, separately.
The same coffee
Both order the same drink, both take a strip with it, at whatever local time makes sense. Deliberately mundane, which is precisely why it works - staying close with long-distance friends has more in this direction.
Seven ideas that build a record over time
The annual strip
Once a year, same pose, same order, everyone who is there. Miss a year and you have a gap that tells its own story. This is the highest-value idea here by a wide margin.
The attendance record
Every time the group is together, one strip - regardless of who made it. Over years it becomes an honest record of who was around when, including the people who drifted away.
Same place, every time
One fixed location - a specific pub, a kitchen, a doorway. The people change, the background does not. A portrait of a place told through everyone who passed through it.
The milestone strip
Every time somebody in the group achieves something - a job, a move, a degree, a breakup survived - a strip with whoever is nearby.
The airport strip
Taken at every departure and every arrival. Over several years of a long-distance friendship this becomes a surprisingly complete history.
One strip per trip
Every holiday, weekend away or day trip gets exactly one strip. The constraint of one forces it to be taken at the right moment rather than the first.
The last day
Whenever something is ending - a shared flat, a job, a city, a chapter - a strip on the final day. Nobody thinks to do this at the time and everybody wishes they had.
How to actually get everyone to do it
The ideas are the easy part. Getting four adults with jobs to be in the same place at the same time is the hard part, and the usual approach - "we should do something soon" - has a near-zero success rate.
- Name a date, not a period. "The 14th" produces a decision. "Sometime in spring" produces nothing.
- Make it small. A ninety-minute coffee gets agreed to. A weekend away gets postponed indefinitely.
- Make it repeating. "First Sunday of the month" removes the negotiation permanently. A recurring event needs deciding once.
- Take the photo early. Not at the end when people are leaving and someone has already gone. In the first twenty minutes, while everyone is present and no one is tired.
- Be the person who insists. Somebody has to be slightly annoying about it. Everyone is glad afterwards, and nobody volunteers.
Getting a group into one frame
Booth crops are tight and webcams are wide-angle, which is a difficult combination for more than two people. A few practical adjustments help.
- Stagger heights. Some sitting, some standing, some crouched. A row of heads at identical height wastes most of the frame.
- Get closer to each other, not to the camera. The instinct is for everyone to lean in towards the lens, which distorts whoever is nearest. Compress sideways instead.
- Push the camera back. Further than feels right. A laptop at normal desk distance fits two people comfortably and four badly.
- Watch the edges. Wide-angle webcams stretch anything near the frame edge. Put the people who care least about their photos there.
- Diagonal beats horizontal. A diagonal arrangement front-to-back fits more people into the same rectangle and looks considerably better.
For pose specifics once everyone is in position, the 25 pose ideas covers group arrangements in more detail.
Why friendship photos matter more than they seem to
There is a particular experience that catches people off guard in their thirties: realising that the friendships which shaped you most are the ones you have the least evidence of.
The flatmates from your early twenties. The group from a first job. The people you saw four times a week for three years and now message twice a year. Those relationships were enormous, and they frequently left behind almost nothing - a handful of badly-lit photos from nights out, and nothing at all from the ordinary days that actually constituted the friendship.
It happens because ordinary days do not feel like they need documenting. You will see these people again next week, so what is there to record? And that is true, right up until you do not.
One strip, once a month, with whoever is around. Ninety seconds. In ten years it will be one of the few things you have from this period that shows what it was actually like - an argument made at more length in how to start a photo strip tradition.
Start with the next time you see them
Do not wait for an occasion. Occasions produce the photos you already have - everyone dressed up, everyone posed, everyone slightly performing.
The strips worth keeping are from the unremarkable days. Somebody's kitchen. A coffee that overran. A Tuesday for no reason. Those are the ones that, years later, actually look like the friendship.
The booth works on a laptop, a phone, or as a shared link if you are in different cities. Four frames, thirty seconds, and it is done.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are good photo ideas with best friends?
Recreating an old photo of the same people is consistently the best result - restage it exactly and print the two side by side. Beyond that, deliberately unflattering faces, a diagonal stack rather than a row, and one person reacting to another's story all produce better strips than posed group shots.
How do you take photos with friends who live far away?
Either use a shared booth so you appear on the same strip from different cities, or agree a prompt and shoot separately whenever each of you has time, then place the strips side by side. The second approach works across any number of time zones since nobody has to be awake simultaneously.
How do you fit a group of friends into one photo booth frame?
Stagger heights so people are sitting, standing and crouching rather than in a row; compress sideways instead of everyone leaning towards the lens; push the camera further back than feels natural; and arrange diagonally front-to-back, which fits more people into the same rectangle.
When is the best time to take a group photo?
In the first twenty minutes, not at the end. By the time people are leaving, someone has usually already gone and everyone is tired. Early photos have everyone present and nobody performing for the camera out of obligation.
Why do I have so few photos with my friends?
Because friendship has no built-in occasions. Romantic relationships have anniversaries and families take photographs at Christmas, but there is no equivalent prompt for friends - so the ordinary days that make up the friendship go undocumented, which is exactly what makes a small repeating ritual worth setting up.
How can best friends take pictures together online?
Best friends can use a browser-based shared photobooth like LensBooth. One friend starts a session and shares the link. Both cameras activate in the same browser window, and a synchronized countdown takes simultaneous shots, compiling you both into one classic four-frame strip.
Sources and further reading
- Portrait photography - Established conventions for photographing people, which booth framing borrows from.
- Rule of thirds - The composition guideline behind most advice about where to put a face in the frame.