I tend to have very shaky hands, especially when attempting to take photos, so in addition to building a small booth, I also purchased a tripod (10$) and a macro lens ($15) for my phone. 

The tripod has a couple of features I really like. For one, its a spider tripod, so the legs are posable, rather then telescoping. Each segment is ringed by rubber, so it can be wrapped around poles and oddly shaped objects. It's stiff enough that holding the weight of my phone is no issue.

For two, the smartphone attachment is removable, leaving a standard tripod threaded rod behind. If I do ever get a nonawful camera, I won't have to buy any new stuff. The little silver arm and foot are spring loaded, so puttng my phone in and taking it out are really easy.

Just for kicks, I tried to take this same picture with the flash.

Eww. I have to find a better light source.

The macro lens is really spiffy. It's basically just a rubber band with a lens inserted, so it'll fit any phone.

Here's that same photo with flash.

The first thing I did was started playing with distance. Here's as close as I could get without the lens.

Next, I put the lens on OVER my phone case. The focus is really hard to achieve, but I can probably make this easier by turning autofocus off.Here's the same photo, without my phone case between the camera and the lens. It's much closer.

Enough photos of the tripod. Here are some photos taken with the camera on the tripod. My newly aquired RAMPS board was the only circuity thing I had handy as a photo subject. All photos are taken without my case on, without zoom, at the highest resolution my phone can take.

Without Flash.

With Flash.

Without Flash. This one was on the tripod.

With flash.This was taken with the macro lens on. My phone was crashing into the ramps board before I could get a focus, and even then, it isn't very focused.

This was taken without the macro lens.

Also, just for kicks, I took a picture of the text on a card that came with the macro lens.

That fisheye is quite bothersome, but I didn't notice it on the pictures of the RAMPS board.

Conclusion: These photos are way better than anything I could've taken before, but there's still a ton of room for improvement. I'd love to hear how y'all take such great photos of your projects, and if there's anything I should try that I haven't thought of. I'm guessing a lot of my problems will go away when I have properly bright lighting.

Here's a lizard.