In this digital age, a good photo is only as far away as your back pocket—or so the cell phone brochures would have you believe. But how many times have you tried to snap a shot of a friend's new puppy, only for it to turn out more like a fuzzy Rorschach than a Kodak moment?

To figure out how to take a decent camera phone photo, we talked to someone who was paid to do it. In 2005, pro shutterbug Robert Clark traversed the country on Sony Ericsson's dime to test the capabilities of the company's newest picture-taking cell. His compositions were eye-opening. (If you don't believe us, check out the partial gallery at left.)

We pressed him for the insider's tricks behind his great shots:

1. Buy a good phone. "Asking some of these phones to shoot good pictures is like asking me to speak Chinese," Clark quips. "It’s not going to happen.” More important than the megapixels (which are still nice to have) is the lens. Read the reviews to find out how a device really shoots. Or try this in-store test. Frame a shot with something in the foreground (about a foot from you) and something else farther away (maybe 10-12 feet). A good lens will keep both subjects in focus.

2. Shoot, shoot, shoot. "Watch amateurs take photos and they’ll shoot like one picture of each subject," Clark says. That's no good. Instead of trying to arrange that one perfect shot, snap a bunch and see what you get. "I’ve shot so many bad pictures," Clark laughs, "some people might say that’s all I do."

3. Be your own tripod. Keeping the phone steady is pretty important, given a camera phone's shutter delay (it's long). If possible, rest the camera on an external surface, like a car or the ledge of a building. If not, try Clark's method for steadying the shooter on your own body. Hold the device with two hands and tuck your elbows into your stomach. Then exhale. "It’s the same thing they teach snipers," Clark says. "Exhale to make sure you’re nice and steady, then shoot."

4. Don’t zoom. The zooms on cell phone cameras are digital, not optical, which means you're not really zooming; you’re merely taking a small frame in the center of your shot and enlarging the pixels. Eventually it will look like the graphics on Centipede.

5. Notice the lighting. Clark prefers the sunlight at either the beginning or the end of a day. For middle-of-the-day shots he advises switching to black and white. What else? “North light is always good," Clark says. "And if you’re going to shoot a portrait of somebody, pay attention to what the light’s doing to their face." Cell phone cameras also handle reflections and silhouettes very well, he says, which is why many of these elements show up in Clark's Sony Ericsson series.

6. Own your machine. “You see people holding cameras out there like they’re scared of them," Clark notes. An uncertain photog is not a good one. Once you commit to a shot, don't be afraid to nuzzle right up close to your subject—whether inanimate or otherwise. If you're already blatantly pointing your phone at someone, you should be comfortable enough to approach them for a better shot.

7. Chill. Don't expect that your flip-phone shooting will suddenly turn you into Ansel Adams. "People shouldn't judge themselves critically," Clark says. “I think they need to go out there and make mistakes."

See Clark's online portfolio.