With the bowhunting season for deer and bear ongoing, hunters customarily take pictures of their harvest. And you don’t need an expensive digital SLR camera to take these photos as almost everyone carries a cell phone these days that can take can just as good photos as large DSLR cameras.

Being able to share the stories and pictures from the hunt with family and friends, it is a way to remember your successful harvest, especially if it’s a trophy buck or 600 pound or more black bear.

According to the folks at Boone and Crockett Club, who receives loads of hunters’ photos, it’s tempting to quickly snap some photos on a smartphone and send them to everyone you know and even posting them to social media. However, taking the time to prepare for clean, high-quality photos will present pictures that are later shared with greater reception showing respect to the animal.

To make good photos, it’s recommended to make sure the photos are taken before field dressing the animal. First order is to clean up any blood showing and if a tongue is sticking out, push it in. B&C Club suggests carrying a paper towel or wet wipes with you in a backpack or hunting bag to wipe away any blood from the animal’s face, from the body and especially entry/exit wounds. If forgetting to take wipes, use dried clusters of grass. And if need be, move the animal from a few feet away from any blood on the ground and position it in a natural landscape and background.

Animals don’t typically die in a position that makes for a good photo. Once the animal is in a good position, then add your bow (or rifle during the firearms season) to the photo. For rifle season, by all means don’t position the rifle barrel facing the hunter of someone else is taking the photo of you and the animal.

Using a digital camera or phone, take a variety of photos as they can easily be deleted and more photos added. Take shots from different positions and angles such as from a high view point, a low view point that’s almost ground level, close-ups of the antlers or a bear’s feet or head, wide angle shots to show the woods where you got the animal and to show the landscape.

And if it’s low light conditions, try to position the animal facing the sun. If it’s overcast, use the flash feature on the phone or shine a flashlight on the subject.

Later on, upon arriving home, you can crop, straighten your photos even erase shadows or reflections on your cellphones photo album app.

If you managed to take a photo of a true trophy buck that you want to make into a wall-hanging 8x10 or larger photo, the phone can be taken to a photo shop to print or CVS/Walgreens that can do that processing.

You may also want to take memory photos of your hunt to add more imagery to support your trophy photos. So take some shots of your treestand, ground blind, hunting with family or friends, wildlife and scenery. Years down the road, when you forgot some details of a particular hunt, these extra photos will help bring back good memories.