From graduation ceremonies to end-of-year field trips to summer vacation trips, this time of year presents many opportunities to take pictures of friends, family, and students. To help you take better pictures, Shutterfly offers an interactive guide to taking the perfect photo.

Shutterfly’s guide to taking the perfect photo begins by having you select the type of camera that you are using. Choose either DSLR or smartphone or point-and-shoot. From there you can select a photo type, there are twelve to choose from, to receive a set of tips on taking the perfect photo. Some of the photo types include selfie, portrait, candid, and action.

Here’s one of Shutterfly’s tips for taking action photos with a smartphone:
Place your finger on the screen where you expect the action to occur. This will lock in focus so that you can take a photo quickly by removing your finger once your subject is visible in the frame.

Applications for Education
I often encourage teachers to have their students collaborate on the development of a picture gallery that they can use whenever they need images for slideshow and video projects. That gallery isn’t terribly useful if the pictures aren’t good. Shutterfly’s guide to taking the perfect photo could be a good resource to review with students before sending them off to take pictures to use in slideshow and video projects.