The embodiment of the invention provides a photographing assistant method and a mobile terminal, wherein the method comprises the steps of: acquiring a preview image, and identifying the photographingtype corresponding to the preview image, wherein the photographing type includes the type of a photographing scene and / or a photographing body; according to the photographing type and a pre-set composition model, determining a composition suggestion, wherein the composition model is a model obtained by training according to photographing types corresponding to different scene materials and recommended compositions; and outputting the composition suggestion. According to the embodiment of the invention, the composition suggestion is output according to the photographing type corresponding to the preview image; therefore, users can be assisted to photograph an image, the composition of which is relatively reasonable; the imaging effect and the imaging rate for image photographing can be improved; the manual operation of the users is simplified; and thus, the photographing experience of the users and the intelligent degree of the mobile terminal are improved.