6 March 2026

How to Take Photos and Selfies in Pokopia (Photo Mode)

By newsgame

Photo modes are nothing new in video games, and Pokemon Pokopia continues this trend, allowing you to capture special moments throughout your adventure of revitalizing the world with your Pokemon pals. While the mechanic is almost completely optional to use, there are some daily challenges that will task you with taking photos, and there are even photo ops to capture particularly cool moments that happen as you continue creating biomes and encouraging Pokemon to return to the world. In this guide, I’ll explain how to use photo mode to take normal photos and selfies in Pokemon Pokopia.

How to Get Pokemon to Follow & Stop Following You in Pokopia

Sometimes you’ll need a Pokemon to follow and stop following you to help with building or creating a new biome in Pokopia. Here’s how to do that.

How to Take Photos and Selfies in Pokemon Pokopia Photo Mode

To take photos, select the Camera option from the Pokedex menu, or you can press – on the left Joy-Con (or on your Pro Controller) to quickly open the camera without having to navigate through the menus.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll have a viewfinder on your screen. You can use the right analog stick to look around the world, and ZL and ZR to zoom. I’ve listed all the camera controls below.

A – Take Photo
B – Quit Photo Mode
ZL – Zoom Out
ZR – Zoom In
X – Change to selfie or normal photo mode
Y – Change between taking normal photos and reference photos
L/R – Tilt the camera left or right. These are also used to cycle through the frame and filter menus
Up D-Pad – Makes all characters in the viewfinder look at the camera
Down D-Pad – Changes Ditto’s pose
Left and Right D-Pad – Change Ditto’s facial expressions
+ – Open the frames and filters menu
Press in Right Stick – Resets camera
Press in Left Stick – Changes camera height

When you’re happy with the angle, filters, frames, and everyone’s got the right pose, press A to take the photo.

Any photos you take will be stored in the Album. There are two different sections for your photos: Memories and Reference Photos. Any normal photos you take of Pokemon or the environment in general will be placed in the Memories section. If you use the camera for identifying a biome, item, or anything else in the environment, then it will be placed in the Reference Photos section.

Photo Ops in Pokemon Pokopia

While using the camera is largely optional, every once in a while, you might get an in-game notification that alerts you that a photo op is taking place nearby. This is normally a Pokemon interacting with the environment in an interesting way.

When this happens, open the camera and look for an area marked with a rectangle to guide you towards the photo op. Make sure that the photo op is within the viewfinder of your camera and then press A to take the photo. This unlocks new frames for future photos.

If nothing else, taking photos and looking out for these photo ops can be a fun way to help pass the time when you’re waiting for a building to be finished.