The invention discloses a camera control method and device. The method comprises the following steps: monitoring whether a motion variable of a target in a preset region of a visible range of a current camera satisfies a predetermined threshold or not, and if so, triggering a turnoff instruction; and executing an operation of turning off the camera in response to the triggered turnoff instruction. Through adoption of the camera control method and device, the problem that resource waste is possibly caused since an actual process of image acquisition is not considered in a camera turnoff control way in the prior art is solved; resources are saved; and the intelligence in camera control is enhanced.