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Seven Ways to Improve What You Upload to Instagram

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Instagram’s become a staple in the average smartphone user’s app drawer. Where it once started off as a tool to enhance and showcase your phone photography, however, it has now arguably taken over as a complete social network altogether. With the introduction of direct messaging, the ability to tag other people, and the all around influx of people simply posting up pictures of what they’re doing at the moment, it’s become clear that the app isn’t just used as an artistic tool anymore. It’s become a form of communication.

But that’s not a bad thing at all. With how much potential the app now holds, Instagram can truly bring something to your following as a photographer. What matters is both how you market yourself and the content that you make. This post won’t necessarily help you with the former, but it can definitely give a few tips on the latter. When Instagram was first released, smartphones were still a new thing; not everyone was able to own one, and taking pictures with a phone’s camera was still more of a novelty thing; with how many different toy-cam styled filters the app offered, it got the job done when it came down to giving a bit of vintage spice to your pictures.

Even Instagram, however, knows that things have changed; in the past few months alone, they released an update allowing an entire editing package and even a hyperlapse app. And it’s because smartphone photography is becoming more sophisticated. As the world’s population becomes virtually void of flip phones, more and more people are starting to use smartphone cameras as their primary lens. And with Instagram being possibly the most popular photo-based social app out there, I decided to throw my two cents out there for those of you who want to make the best of it. This doesn’t have to be about getting more followers, and it doesn’t even have to be about having a professional photography presence on the app. If you just like posting pictures on the app and want a few good tips on how to make them a bit more perfect, then maybe I can give you a few tips here.

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Instagram’s New Hyperlapse App Is Surprisingly Smooth

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Instagram is making it easy for everyone with an iPhone to become timelapse creators with the new app it announced today, which the social photo sharing giant has dubbed Hyperlapse. In it’s infancy, Hyperlapse was nothing more than a side project a few developers from the Instragram camp decided to take on for the fun of it; however, the underdog of an app got its big break as it started circulating around the Instagram offices winning the hearts of all the employees. The positive reaction the app garnered among their own motivated Instagram to go public with it. A move, I suspect, will pay off big for the company given the popularity of it’s namesake app.

The  app allows iPhone 5 users to capture up to 45 minutes of video footage to be converted into a hyperlapse all within the app. iPhone & iPod Touch 4 users can also use the app, but will be limited to 10 minute capture times. According to Hyperlapse Technical Support page, all devices must be running iOS 7 or later.[Read More…]

New Algorithm Uses Text Commands to Change the Weather in Pictures

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Do you ever notice how sophisticated and easily accessible futuristic technology can look at times when watching a movie? Just to throw an example out there, remember how subtly awesome it was when all Tony Stark needed to do to paint his armor was ask Jarvis to add some hot rod color? As advanced as technology is these days, Louis C.K. was right; we’re a bit spoiled when it comes down to how much we expect. Just the other night, I had a friend complaining that he was stuck on 4G because there wasn’t any LTE in the area.

The bottom line is that efficiency and speed both play a big role in how technology moves forward. As simple as it is to take your phone out and press a button to show the screen, we ended up finding a way to make pushing it unnecessary. As simple as it is to type in a password to buy an app, we replaced it with a fingerprint sensor. And as efficient as it is to Photoshop your pictures to change the weather, we’ve now found a way to let an algorithm do the job for us.

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How an Old School Photographer is Kicking Your Butt on Instagram

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Social media is supposed to be the realm of the young, and in this realm, Instagram reigns as visual king. It’s easy to imagine skinny jean-wearing hipsters snapping filtered squares of their perfect lunches and summer skinny dipping soirees. So it might surprise you to find that an old school National Geographic photographer has unlocked the keys for Insta-success.

Jim Richardson (@JimRichardsonNG) is a contributing photographer to National Geographic and has shot over 25 stories in a storied 30-year career. Although he continues to work for the magazine and pursue personal topics of interest like light pollution, Richardson has also amassed an Instagram following of over 80,000 people – outpacing the majority of his contemporaries, as well as online photo “celebrities.” The ever-cerebral photographer and I have been discussing Instagram and its meaning and implications for over a year now, and we recently traded some notes on the topic.

PS: What compelled you to create an Instagram account?

JR: At first I thought Instagram was totally frivolous. But then I started seeing that photographers were using it to make real statements. And then National Geographic started the @natgeo feed, and early on I could see that there was broad interest. It was gaining an audience. So I jumped in — not the first of the National Geographic photographers to do so, but pretty early on. I just figured that I didn’t know how this thing was going to work, but I needed be in the middle of things, trying to figure it out.

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Slingshot: Facebook’s New App Takes Snapchat Head-On

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Facebook’s been expanding like no other social network before it for quite a while now; with the acquisition of apps like Instagram, or companies like Oculus, it’s clear that this is a website relentless in its business strategies. Just about a year back, Facebook attempted to purchase Snapchat for $3 billion, and Snapchat declined. After that, they successfully snagged WhatsApp in exchange for an unbelievable sum of $16 billion. And I’m not too much of an expert on the matter, but if a company’s paying four times what the Star Wars franchise was sold for for an app, it’s safe to say they’re not messing around when it comes to expansion.

Considering Snapchat turned down the company’s offers, Facebook decided to develop something of their own: a new app called Slingshot. Designed to be similar to Snapchat in terms of its basic concept, Slingshot has now officially been unveiled.

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Instagram’s 6.0 Update Finally Brings Real Editing Tools to the Social Networking App

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Instagram hasn’t really been much of a photography app, lately. When it started off, it was a great way for the average smartphone user to give their photos a vintage Polaroid look. But with how popular it’s gotten, especially after its acquisition by Facebook, Instagram’s been keeping more of a focus on social networking than it has on actual photo editing. Today, a new update just released for the app that might change all that.

The latest update, Instagram 6.0, brings improvements to what’s already there – straightening, cropping, rotating – and then it adds on more. This time, the social networking-focused app is coming with tools that have been essential for any photographer up to this point; with 6.0, we get options to adjust brightness, saturation, contrast, and more. No word yet on how those features compare in quality to their counterparts in apps like Snapseed, VSCO, or Afterlight, but considering it’s one of the fastest growing social networking apps out there, it’s great to see Instagram bringing tools like this to mainstream attention.

Check out the full list of specs after the break. You can update to Instagram 6.0 right now on Google Play or the App Store.

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Morning Coffee with an Instagram Wedding Photographer

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I’m not entirely sure, but it is quite possible that I witnessed a sign of the rapidly approaching Apocalypse this morning. There was no plague of locusts descending from the heavens. No fire. No brimstone. The earth continued rotating on its axis just fine. I’m sure nobody else even noticed. Regardless of its subtlety, it still came at me out of nowhere like a brick to the side of the head.

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Kodak & Instagram: A Tale of Dollars & Sense

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Instagram, the supposed “new face” of photography, celebrated its 3rd birthday earlier this month. What’s that? You weren’t invited to the party? Well, considering the usual fanfare and not-so-subtle ways in which the billion-dollar photo-sharing app usually marks its milestones, I’m actually kind of surprised that Instagram’s official entry into toddlerhood (or teens in internet years) came and went without even so much as a blip on our collective radar..

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