I have to turn off Live Photo every time I use the iPhone Camera.

And then, Live Photo turns itself on again. Ugh. I mean, really, if I wanted to shoot video, I’d set the camera to Video. Right? I just can’t keep it turned off. It seems that this is a bug in the iOS, but I can’t be sure.

So, after playing around, for who knows how long, I finally figured it out. How to turn off Live photo and keep it off. Since this has bugged me for ages, and it’s pretty common for my clients to also have this problem – I wanted to share the solution.

No one I know wants to shoot in Live Photo 99.99% of the time anyway. My iPhone is essential. I use it for GPS coordinates, for scouting locations and, of course, selfies. Sometimes those captures turn out to be better than what I’ve got from my Nikon DSLR. So, I don’t want video unless I choose to.

Oh, have I already said that?

This is what the camera looks like when Live Photo is ON:

The red circle shows Live Photo ON

This is what the camera looks like when Live Photo is OFF:

The red circle shows Live Photo OFF

Here’s how to turn off Live Photo on your iPhone:

Step 1. Go to your settings icon on your iPhone.

Step 2. Scroll until you find “Camera”

Step 3. Select “Preserve Settings”

Step 4. Turn on “Live Photo” to green.

Yes, I know, it sounds counter intuitive. But you are telling the camera, “I turned off Live Photo, and that it means I want to keep Live Photo turned off. You don’t get to turn it back on. I do.” And, who at Apple thought that this feature was so cool that everyone would want to shoot in Live Photo forever?

From this point, you have turned off the automatic Live Photo feature. It will only turn on when you choose to turn it on.

Happy Holidays!