What’s the best way to get villager photos in your personal experience?

[Plainbluetees]

Recently I’ve been having some trouble with getting villager photos. Every day, I give Sydney and Antonio wrapped iron wall lamps. I’ve been giving Antonio the lamps once a day for almost two months now, and he’s at the point when he asks for a secret greeting for a few weeks but still no picture yet. Am I doing something wrong? What do you guys do to get villager photos?

 

[Jam86]

i focus on 1 villager at a time and idc about messing up houses and stuff
so i get like 20-30 gifts and just time travel 1 day at a time just giving the villager loads of gifts in one go

or most of the time i just buy the photos with tbt

 

[Rajescrossing]

For me , when I started first , I gave them iron wall lamp in a wrapping paper. Then next day I saw YouTube videos about the 5 nonnative fruits trick of course with wrapping , there is all different ways 2, 3 or 5 nonnative fruits you can give them but I consider 5 fruits. Then I used fruits stacking method for 2 days and I got 2 photos in the mail box from poppy and fauna. I continue doing this for 2 more days and today I thought I will give them again 5 wrapped nonnative fruits and very surprised I got Allis photo today. So overall it’s just a luck I would say. I think I will continue to giving them 5 fruits method, it works for me I guess.

 

[JemAC]

I think if you're talking to them everyday, giving them wrapped gifts and completing tasks for them when they come up then you're doing everything right. As its been a while though maybe change what you gift them, for ages I'd give all my villagers clothing but I saw a lot of people suggest on another thread about gifting a stack of fruit so I've changed to that and have got quite a few photos in the last two weeks.

 

[Etown20]

You are technically doing it right, it's just RNG. At max friendship, the odds of receiving a photo back are only 8.67%. If you are alright with receiving the photo in the mail, the full inventory/fruit stack trick has slightly better odds at 10.2%.

You may already know this, but just something to be aware of - villagers have an inventory of 32 (this is separate from their clothing inventory which I think is around 24 or something), so after a certain number of wall lamps, furniture in their house could start to disappear.

There are several guides out there that go far in depth and may be helpful for understanding the friendship mechanics:

TBT thread
Friendship Handbook
Gifting Guide

 

[meggiewes]

Talk to them, give them stuff, do little tasks for them. Getting a villager picture is completely up to RNG. I also never worry about "messing up" their house because I can always help them fix it to get it back to looking nice. It is a challenge to do so sometimes and I love doing it!

I find that when I purposely try to get it, then I never seem to get it. As soon as I forget about it, they give it to me!

 

[JellyBeans]

once I've reached a point where I think I've got enough friendship with them (this can be easy to spot e.g. they ask for a catchphrase I think? can't remember exactly) I start doing the fruit stack trick (gift them fruit from a stack with full inventory so they have to mail me a gift) because I'm pretty sure this increases the chances of getting a gift? but yeah fruit stack is my go to, I think I've only gotten maybe one or two in person as a gift exchange. it's all just RNG unfortunately

 

[-Blue-]

I never tried to actively get the pictures, but I hear that some people used to do the coconut in a present trick. I don't know if that still works, but if it does, it's probably still a good way to do it.

 

[tajikey]

Historically, I've gifted wrapped blue rose wreaths until I received their photo. Lately, I've been gifting wrapped fruit, and have just recently switched to the gifting one fruit from a stack with full pockets trick. Both Judy and Violet are in a spot where they could be gifting me their photo at any time, so hopefully I get them sooner than later.

 

[TommyTDL]

As the others said you're doing it right, it just takes time. On our island that my GF set up and I became a resident of, it always seems like she gets the photo in like 20 days and it takes me 30 to 40. It gets frustrating at times dealing with what I call the shared island penalty but we get through it.

 

[Livia]

I give them a wrapped giant clam, or wrapped 2 nonnative fruit every day until I get their photo. I usually get photos after a month with this method, but some villagers can be stubborn and take longer.

 

[JKDOS]

Giving them iron wall lamps has never seemed like a good idea to me. It takes an outrageous amount of resources. (40 iron per day, 20 clay per day) I use to gift Cuckoo Clocks, but now I'm doing 2-non native fruit wrapped

 

[maria110]

I usually give 6 wrapped non native fruits or a wrapped iron wall lamp. Some villagers, like Raymond, have given me a photo quickly with this method while others take longer, like Francine and Maple. It's random though. I earned 63 photos this way.

 

[Radio]

I gift 2 wrapped non-native fruits a day. I've been doing this for ~2 months and have 5 photos.

 

[DVD]

I personally had a hard time receiving their pictures at first, but if you just gift them things in colors they like and wrap them up nicely before giving them to them it should be pretty easy for you to get them fairly quickly! Also, talk to them and do them favors to make friendship level go up even faster

I recently discovered this nookplaza tool and it's super useful to find clothing items your villagers will like a lot as gifts too!

 

[Slothicans]

.

 

[KayDee]

2 non-native fruit giftwrapped has worked well for me. I have 20 photos so far.

 

[MelodyRivers]

I have been trying forever to get photos from my high friendship villagers especially Tank my starter jock. I started a thread and ended up trying the suggested stacked fruit/full inventory method and I just got Tank and Dragos photos in the mail today!!

 

[moonlights]

I wrap three non-native fruit and it's worked twice so far.

 

[annex]

I was using unwrapped fossils and it was working great. I switched to wrapped non native fruit for two weeks and had zero luck. I went back to fossils and got the last three pictures in a little over a week.