Instagram #WWIM12 - Edinburgh Zoo and National Museum of Scotland

Last weekend I headed off to Edinburgh, on the 8am train, to my second Instameet. WWIM12! First up was a visit to an empty National Museum of Scotland. The main atrium is vast and an amazing space with some great features and exhibits dotted around. I'd been here only once before, on a busy Sunday afternoon with two tired nephews in tow, so it was great to be here when we had an 'empty'. Yes, that's right, they very kindly opened up the space half an hour early for us Instagrammers. An 'EmptyNMS'.

Everyone quickly set about the task of wandering around this vast 'birdcage' like building and snapping away. At about 10.15am we were taken up to a circular meeting room with great view of the bustling streets below and where breakfast was laid on. Then, the final treat was higher, up on the roof terrace where the public aren't really allowed to go. And the best part... The views of course.

Huge thanks to National Museum of Scotland team for their generosity and hospitality and @Snapmike for organising that part of the day.

Next, a few of us hopped in a taxi and made the short journey over to Edinburgh Zoo for part two of this WWIM12. It was #WWIM12EdinburghZoo. Now, I haven't been to the zoo or any kind of animal park since I was about 6. Many, many years ago. Oof, I'm getting old! The only thing I can remember from that visit was a picture of me and my sister standing next to a rock with a giant bear behind us. We had no clue he was there!

Anyway, we arrived just after 11am and got our tickets and name badges, but the surprise part was a ticket to see the Panda's at 2pm. Wow, very generous.

I headed on up the hill to the chimpanzee area where a feed was about to begin. A few people had gotten to the balcony before us so we had to wait at the fence but still managed to see the chimps grabbing away at their food. They had a huge wooden and rope built structure that looked like such great fun. A little while later we swapped over with the balcony group and got a closer view of the animals. I never took my Fuji camera with me as I wanted to shoot on my iPhone for my Instagram feed. In hindsight I should've just slung it over my shoulder as the zoom of the iPhone is not great for shots of animals who are quite far away. Still, good to see them in real life though. There's one there in that picture above, a female, who's been there for 50 years we were told.

After the chimpanzees, I decided to wander on my own. I slowly made my way up the hill to an area called Dinosaurs Return. Giant animatronic dinosaurs were dotted around, with sound effects and one was even spitting water! A few kids had fun standing under it. Another kid was screaming when his mum tried to get a picture of him at the mouth of the T-Rex. Hehe.

After a quick stop for lunch at a BBQ stall it was time to head over to the see the Panda's. The female wasn't around and the male was just sort of laying there in a hammock with his back to the window. The keeper told us he ate 45kg of six different kinds of bamboo per day. Greedy thing!

Shortly after that was the penguin parade. A strange affair. Everyone was asked to stay on the grass behind a yellow line and a little group of penguins walked around, closely guarded by the keepers. The penguins were smaller than I had imagined. Only about knee high, and the black part wasn't as black as I'd thought.

The Scottish weather was unusually warm and made for a great day out. Most of us headed back to the lecture theatre in the chimpanzee area to charge up phones and take some final shots. After that was a quick drink stop then I headed for the train.

Huge thanks to Edinburgh Zoo for their hospitality, and to the Instagram Edinburgh folks for organising it all. Really appreciate it. It was lovely meeting new faces too. I'm always a bit awkward at these events. So if I met you (or not!) and I was a bit quiet, I do like you and know that I'm much more talkative once I get to know you. *smiley face*

You can see some great photos by heading over to Instagram and typing in #WWIM12Edinburgh #emptyNMS #WWIM12EdinburghZoo I highly recommend you have a look!

Angela

#WWIM11_Edinburgh

I finally did it. I finally got a place and attended a WorldWide Instameet. This was number 11 and I attended the one that took place in Edinburgh on Saturday evening, organised by @IgersEdinburgh. It was held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One and was a lovely setting for it. Two things I Love; Instagram and modern art, in one evening - I was always going to want to be in on that action. Even better was the fact that the Roy Lichtenstein work has just opened at the gallery plus a great deal more. I'm a huge fan of all that pop art stuff and even have a print of one hanging on my wall.

Anyway, I arrived in the golden hour to the gallery and there were a few people milling around outside whilst a group took some pictures on the grassy sculpture. It's always a bit awkward when you are rocking up to these events and you don't know anyone there. Luckily there were a few people in the same position as well as some folks who obviously knew each other.

@Ange77H

Then there's the meet up etiquette. When I've been to 'tweet-ups' in the past there have been name badges with your Twitter handle on it. There were no name badges here. I was thinking "shall I just say Angela or will I give my Instagram name?"... I soon discovered Angela would do fine.

close up of a Lichtenstein

After the opening group shop was taken we made our way inside the museum and the door was closed. We had an EMPTY! The first of it's kind in Scotland so it felt like a real privilege. After an intro by the museum staff and a few pointers from the organisers we were allowed to go on our way to explore and snap this wonderful building.

I love this picture but WHO is this? anyone? @IgersEdinburgh 

There were a few hashtags we were asked to use on our pictures and it didn't take me long to find a few great shots #emptyscotmodern #emptyscotmodern_corner #emptyscotmodern_reflection. I also brought along my Fuji as I wanted to get some better quality shots of the artwork. PS all photos in this post were taken with my iPhone6. I'll do another post with the Fuji pictures.

At around 7.50pm the bell was rung and that was the end of the '#empty'. What a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Everyone headed outside into the chilly spring air and there were more group shots with faces lit by phone light. Most people then headed off to have food and drinks and I headed home.

I was sad the shop wasn't open

If you'd like to see more pictures I took on the night head over to my Instagram @Ange77H :)

Huge thanks to @IgersEdinburgh Steve (@Wilde_Oates) and Jemma (@Jemmacraig) for organising and to @natgalleriessco for allowing us the privilege to explore an empty Modern One.

Angela x

Fitness Update

Hello! Yes, I'm still here. I've had an extended blogging break and i've no excuse other than i've been really busy with life. Well, mostly work and being at the gym, and then you're tired when you come home and the last thing you want to do after you've showered and fed yourself is fire up the laptop. So there it is...

Anyway, since I've been spending most of my non-work time at the gym, I thought I'd do a fitness update post about what I've been up to.

After Christmas I made a conscious decision that I was going to mix up my training a bit. Rewind. When I say training, I just mean my fitness classes and gym sessions because I'm not actually in training for anything as such. So yeah, i wanted to mix up my training routine because I felt I'd been stuck at a plateau for a few months and wasn't seeing any changes in my body that I want. I want to be stronger, a little bit leaner and fitter - although I am pretty fit. Losing weight is not my goal since I haven't actually lost or put on any weight for about 6 months. Apart from 2 weeks ago when i lost 2 lbs, but that aside I'm the same weight as I was 6 months ago.

My routine went a little something like this:
Monday - Circuits
Tuesday - Shockfit circuit (weights, body weight exercises)
Wednesday - morning Metafit - HIIT; then gym session
Thursday - insanity OR Metafit - HIIT
Friday - Spin class
Saturday - insanity - HIIT
Sunday - spin (every other Sunday)

But then i started to get bored. After I got my MyZone belt and was getting readings after each class, I realised that my Monday night circuits weren't giving the results I thought they were. I wanted more. My Tuesday shockfit class is all about strength with a little bit of cardio. It's mostly body weight and heavy weight lifting techniques and again my calories burned reading wasn't that high. Now it could be said that I may not be working hard enough but trust me, I am. Wednesday morning class gets the blood pumping then we do a little session in the gym afterwards. Thursday again, high intensity. Friday is my favourite spin class. I've been doing Friday night spin for about 3 years now and boy has it been getting tougher recently. Saturday was a half hour insanity class which is great and Sunday is spin. And so all of that wasn't producing the results I was after.

Then I mixed it up a little. And now my routine looked a little like this:
Monday - Circuits, then Spin
Tuesday - Shockfit
Wednesday - morning Metafit, then gym session; evening Spin
Thursday - Metafit, then Body Pump
Friday - Spin
Saturday - Metafit
Sunday - Spin (every other Sunday).

I've been doing that for about 6 weeks now and my legs are really starting to show good definition. My upper arms have great shape as well as my upper back and my abs are coming along nicely too. My butt is still a bit wobbly and bigger than I'd like but slowly does it. I can see change and that's a good thing. There was nearly a set back though when I accidentally dropped a 20kg weight plate on my foot the other night at Shockfit. Right on my left metatarsal. Luckily there's no break but it is quite bruised now. Wowsers.

I love a nice bright trainer and tight - Nike Free trainers, Nike Legend capri tight

To shake things up a little bit more I've booked a session with a personal trainer at the gym to see where i can improve and get tips and tomorrow I'm going to start the Kayla Itsines BBG workout guide. I'm committing to those 12 weeks because i believe it will add to my routine or I can substitute a class for the BBG workout in the gym. I'm inspired by all those women who post amazing transformations on Instagram. So much so this morning I posted the picture at the top of this post on Instagram and immediately got great support from a good few people. Hopefully that community will push me through.

Aside from all of the fitness stuff above, I've been really trying to watch my eating. Eating healthier than i have done in years but not denying myself a pancake or a burger if i want it. Everything in moderation. Need to up my protein though, that's a fact.

My real struggle comes with sweeties. Chocolate. I have about 1 can of Coke a week, but still drink little Irn Bru bottles. Only 1 a day mind - I know, I shouldn't. Maybe I'm hoping that if I write it down here it'll kick me into really trying to give. Really making that final effort to cut out the sugary stuff.

We can only hope. I'll update in a few weeks when I'm further into my new routine but feel free to leave any tips, comments below.

Angela x

Favourite Instagrammers

Instagram is still one of my all time favourite apps and will always have a well deserved spot on the home page of my phone. I love it because I'm a visual person who takes inspiration from photos and colour and views and sunsets rather than words. One thing I thought was that I can't think if I've ever blogged about my favourite Instagrammers? Can you remember? Well, even if I have i thought I'd do an update on some of the Instagram feeds that I love the best for various reasons. It's good to share the love sometimes.

First up we have @TheFashionGuitar Charlotte from the blog of the same name showing us all things fashion and New York. Her style is great and her pictures show us a small glimpse into her life of fashion and kids and a recent move to New York. Stylish but not showy. Follow her.

@Johnnyramirez1 OH MY GOD. This guy is one half of Ramirez Tran who I think I've mentioned on this blog before. Hairdresser in Los Angeles, I 'Like' nearly every single picture he posts. I would give anything to visit his salon. He is the one single person who i would trust my hair to 100%. Hands down.

@andreadabene This feed is amazing. Brilliant vistas from a snowy covered Montana just now. It looks all clean and minimal - just lovely. Previously the desert with a little bit of greenery in between.
A well curated feed.

@_Divanoletto Fun adventures with bikes. Nicolo is based in Rome but he travels all over. There's always a bike and a smile. A really nice collection.

@Wilde_Oates absolutely stunning set of pictures from a guy in Edinburgh called Steve. Mostly Scotland and Edinburgh but that's okay. It's a lovely place to capture and this feed shows our country off really well. Brilliant stuff.

@Le21eme AKS. "Luh Van-Tay-Uh-Nee-Emm" Brilliant fashion photographer. NOT street style, fashion shows and the #AKSforeheadselfie's are dreamy. Top.

@dr_woo_ssc Shamrock Social Club tattoos. Gorgeous delicate tattoos that I'd get, if I ever took the plunge.

@Jedidiahjenkins Recently completed a cycle from Oregon to Patagonia, he's now moved back to LA to write a book about his adventure. The emotion and what it meant to him to make that journey really came through in his pictures. We saw who he met on that journey, where he slept, how he got his little bike repaired and what he ate. Everything. Nice.

And those are just some of my favourite Instagram feeds. Of course there are more that I love but this post would go on *forever* if I listed them. Go have a look though, and let me know who you're favourites are to follow on Instagram?

Angela x

Featured on VSCO weekly selects

Last week I was scrolling through my Twitter time line during a break in some Commonwealth Games sporting action and happened upon a picture collage. Inside that collage I thought I recognised one of my very own snaps. "Nah, it couldn't be! Could it?".

It was a picture collage posted by the @VSCO twitter account (above) and included a link along with the picture collage to a feature they do called Weekly Selects. I clicked in it and scrolled down to what I was sure was one of my snaps and YES, there it was. My name!! I knew it! This was the picture, below. The staircase from the Jim Lambie exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh.

Now, incase you don't know what VSCO is or who they are, here's some brief information. VSCO stands for Visual Supply Co. According to their website "VSCO is passionate about creating beautiful and efficient digital tools for the modern creative." Amongst the products they have is one of the many photography apps I use on my iPhone - VSCOcam. If you don't have it on your phone then I highly recommend you download it now as it really is a comprehensive photo app with many features and filters that you can use to tweak your photos to make them look their best. I tend to use it for the good stuff. The stuff I want to keep and post to my VSCO Grid - which you can view on the web version of VSCO. 

You can find and follow other people's VSCO Grids too but as far as I know you can't 'like' pictures in the way that you can on Instagram. I don't mind that though since you tend to get a better quality of picture over there. Well, less pictures of food and cats and certainly no selfies (yeeha!). At least I haven't seen any selfies on there.

I was overjoyed by this and RT'd it and thanked them very much for selecting me.

About an hour later I got a notification that I'd been tagged in one of their Instagram pictures too. (They tag all of the people they feature). That was very cool. But soon after that I started to get loads and loads of notifications of people 'liken' my pictures and following me there. I don't know how people with thousands of followers who regularly get millions of likes, cope. Turn the notifications off I suppose.

I thought I'd share my little brief piece of fame on the Internet with you. I know it's not much but I was thrilled and I've only been using it a short while. I've been on Instagram from the very beginning and still haven't had one of my photos featured anywhere by them.

What are your favourite photography apps? I'm always looking for new ones.

Angela x

Glasgow Photowalk

A few Sundays ago I headed to Glasgow not for my usual Sunday cinema trip but for a photowalk and workshop with a bunch of strangers. Standard. This was arranged by Ashley over at Girl With A Camera and since I couldn't go to the first one, I sure didn't want to miss this second one. Armed with nothing more than my iPhone 4S I made my way there.

I was late. Only by a few minutes and only because the queue for the car park was looooong, then i had to catch the underground. But I did make it and they hadn't started yet. Phew. When I arrived there was a room of people sitting in dim light on various shapes of seating, kinda like a house party! I took a seat and waited a few minutes. Then it began...

Ashley welcomed everyone and introduced today's guest, Dan Rubin. Someone I actually have followed in Instagram for a while. Great photos there. He gave a little talk about what we'd be doing, then about some of his favourite photographers, then techy stuff about cameras. Myself and one other person were the only ones using smart phones - iPhones to be exact. Yikes. Everyone else seemed to have huge all singing all dancing camera equipment with them. It was all very interesting though since I am in the middle of deciding which camera to buy and what use i would get out of it. (As is the norm for me, I'll have to go through my 6 month uhming and ahing research and gestation period before i nail the final one down. By which time a new model will be in the pipeline!). Anyway, I felt a little bad for just having my iPhone but then Dan said it doesn't matter what equipment you have, it's what you see that's the main thing - or something along those lines. He put a list of apps that were useful for phones and luckily I had almost all of them on my phone already.

After about an hour of slides and tech talk and pointers about what to talk pictures of we set out on our walk. It wasn't raining but it was dull and grey. No harsh sunlight though which was apparently good. We wandered out into the lane and everyone set about taking their pictures. It was good to see how other people worked and what they wanted to take pictures of. Some were portraits, others were buildings. Me? Well I like looking up. Buildings, skies, clouds, architecture. Portraits are quite hard on an iPhone unless you are able to use your elbows to get to the front. My elbows seemed to be out of action that day...

However, in the lane next to the workshop venue there was an old bike, a worn old crumbling painted door and a great wall. I took one of my best pictures there. What do you think?

I shot this on the VSCOcam app, then edited it later on at the workshop after a few hints and tips from Dan. It's my best picture form the day, or one of them at least. When I uploaded it to the Glasgow Photowalk Flickr group then opened it on my laptop, I loved t even more. The quality is pretty decent for a 3 year old iPhone 4S camera.

We walked around Ashton Lane, the headed to the University of Glasgow and back around in a loop to the workshop venue. I was glad as it was getting pretty cold and my hands were numb from taking pics on my phone. My battery was almost at zero too! Damn you iPhone and your rubbish battery.

Back at the venue we got sandwiches and tea and then were told to each pick about 3 photos to edit. I had a hard job deciding. In the end I opted for the bike shot above and the two below.

Not a bad days work and a great way to spend an early spring Sunday.

Hopefully I can make it along to the next one. And you can too! check out the website.

Angela x

Embedding Instagrams

Testing testing.
Testing out the Instagram embed feature. Hope the photos are of decent quality and size...
you decide...






Edit: I've just done a preview and the pictures look pretty nice (except for the user name at the top, but i'll forgive that).

Angela x

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British National Road Race Championships: NRRC

Last Sunday I enjoyed my first ever cycling road race event in Glasgow. It was the National Road Race Championships. There had been time trials in the preceding days but I was only there to catch the men's road race. However I did arrive in time to see the end of the women's race.

When I arrived I was surprised at there being so few people out to watch. But perhaps they'd drifted off as I caught the last lap of that race only.

I opted to stay around the city centre area to watch. First up was a spot at the top of the Buchanan Street section. Right outside the Apple store. It was a nasty left hand turn and with the spots of rain that started it made the first few laps a bit tricksy there. Thankfully I only saw one faller and he was as quickly up and away on his as he was when he fell off.

To say it was utterly exciting to see people such as David Miller, Ben Swift, Mark Cavendish and more on the roads was a massive understatement. I was starstruck. It was brilliant. I kept snapping pictures and videos then had just about enough time to rush into the Apple store to recharge the phone up some more.

Around lap 6 I decided to head up St Vincent Street as there was a bit of an incline, and how would they fare on this. It's not of Alpine proportions but a little bit of a punt up there no doubt. The pavements were fairly quieter up there. Plenty of room to catch a great view of the leading train. Well, there were 2 leaders for a long time then the Cavendish, Miller, Kennaugh and Swift group for a good few laps. Towards the end that lead group was down to 4. They were flying. It was great to actually see this in person having watched the grand tours for most of my adult life on TV. I can only imagine what it's like on a stage of the TdF. The whooshing of the wheels, the clicking of the gears, the chatter... Magic.

By the last lap I'd made my way around to the George Square side and got a quiet spot on the pavement to have a wee seat. I watched for the last time as the leaders flew past at an visibly more increased rate. Wowsers. It was time for my train home and since I was nowhere near the start/finish line I'd watch it all unfold on Twitter from my comfy train seat.

Mark Cavendish won. You wouldn't really bet against him in a spring finish now would you. Brilliant racing from everyone who took part. And good organisation from everyone involved. Scottish Cycling; British Cycling; Glasgow City Council and the volunteers and event staff who were on hand all day to shepherd you across the route and give a little whistle to let you know the riders were on their way.

All in all a great day out in Glasgow, Miles Better! ;)

Angela x

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Just a few of my Instagram Favourites

Before Christmas there was a big furore over Instagram and people's interpretation of the new privacy policy (which has now been changed, by the way, and so I'm not sure where we're at with that!).

Instagram web profile page

Anyway, a few people up and left Instagram defecting to other less easy or nice to use apps (IMO). Apparently Flickr gained a lot of newbies too. In the updated Flickr app I accidentally clicked DONE which I thought would take me back a step but what it did was add all of my Twitter contacts who have a Flickr account. Embarrassing. As quick as I could I deleted all the contacts as I didn't want all the cat pictures appearing in my Flickr feed too. No offence but cat or dog pics aren't really my thing. However, there were a few contacts i did keep. Simply because they take and share great pictures and I'd like to see more of them. I've had my Flickr account for years, a Pro account at that too. I always keep that paid up because Flickr is the place i share all my digital camera pictures, my unedited proper full scale pictures. Heck if you've got a spare hour you can find nearly every single picture I took in Nepal on there. It's in a named set so easy to find. Some of them aren't great but some of them are fantastic. I've tried over the years to keep it neatly organised into Sets. Some pictures have fallen through that system though. If you find me on there chances are I'll likely have a nosey around your pictures to see if they interest me. If so, you're a keeper.

So, now, this very week, Instagram has launched a new way of looking at your home feed on the web. Quite  good because sometimes I'd like to see the pictures a little larger than my iPhone screen and of course that doesn't let you zoom in on the snaps. If you've got an account just log in.

my Instagram home feed

Anyway, the point of this post was to say that Instagram may be keeping strange friends these days but I'll not delete my account, ever. And here are a few reasons why... my favourites, just a few... Enjoy!

Pauloctavious
Creative photos. Fun. Normal snapshots. Views. People. Everything. Brilliant.

Haihype
Michael. So jealous of his amazing jumpstagrams. Amazing Californian beach sunsets. Landscapes. His dog.

RyanMarshall_
One of my favourite ever bloggers, except he doesn't blog much now. Florida based. Wonderful family life pictures. Simply beautiful.

Punkerpat
A bonafide surfer, who actually takes pictures whils IN THE WATER!! You are transported with him as he catches the waves. Breathtaking.

Josephdanger
Creative and fun. Amazing Mo for Movember. He's shaved his beard off now though. Local lad. Scribbler, landscapes, Edinburgh, music, filming, FUN!

SincerelyJules
LA based fashion blogger. Great style. Outfits. Creative. Follow her fashion travels.

_smittyboy
Glasgow based. City scenes. Sunsets. People. Great mix of scenes and pictures.

Daveedgamboa
Student. Amazing jumpstagrams, landscapes and sunsets. Android user. Black n white pictures, colour too. Really brilliant.

JasonHudson
Jason and Jeffstagram's round the world adventure. They've only just started. Get involved. iPhone 5 only photos, edited with Snapseed and Afterglow. Great pictures.

Audi
Great car pictures. I love Audi's anyway but the pictures are arty, old cars, new cars, LED's, cars, cars, cars.

Moneal
Moody coastline shots. Photographer - so of course they're gonna be great!

I hope you've managed to click the links and search out a few new people to follow on Instagram, I', Ange77H over there by the way. Now who do you reckon I should follow too?

Recommendations welcome!
Angela x

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Filter me this, Filter me that

Ah Ha haha ha haa. Hahahahahaha ha ho hee hee. Aha oh hee ha. Aha. Ho hee haaa.
(I hope someone gets that reference. I LOVE it).

Yes, that is the sound of laughter emanating from the offices of Twitter and Facebook (nee Instagram) this past few weeks. It's the laughter that says 'we're launching a new filter and a kinda fancier UI' (Instagram). It's also the laugh that says 'oh yeah, punks! Well, we're introducing Filters. So, nah!' (Twitter).

What the laugh should represent is the laughs of despair from us, the users, because it means we are missing out a little bit. While they squabble in their millionaires playground, we users wish that we didn't have to click twice instead of just once to view our Brannan filtered sunrises (me!) when they appear in a tweet. For yes, that's all you'll see now is a link, not your lovely photos. It's something to do with Instagram and a disappearing card trick (please someone get these references before i finish this post?!), or... something  technical like that. Oh and I jest about having to click the link to see the photos. I don't get why folk are decrying this, it's what you do when you want to read an article from a link in a tweet too.

my favourite recent capture

In return our Twitter friends have totally eradicated all traces of your Instagram pictures from your profile. What you have left is those crappy pictures that appear in tweets you retweeted and you thought were funny at the time but goddamn you don't want them showing up on your profile. They're there. Gah!

Willow. No not some new movie set in a magical land where people are 2 foot tall and have scraggy hair, Willow is the new filter in Instagram. It's black and white and grey...  ...*tumbleweed* ...  ...  Yeah, that was my reaction too. It is nice, but i don't really do black n white photos.

Baubles in Willow on Instagram

It's okay though, because over on Twitter they are soon to launch new Filters. *Cue ticker tape and marching bands and funky street dancers that tumble all over the place*...  ...  ...  ...  Wait, have you seen the filters? Wow. I have an app called Camerabag on my phone. It was one of my early forays into camera trickery and while the filters are nice, it's pretty basic. That's what i think the Twitter Filters look like. That is me just viewing the pictures on their blog though so no hands on experience because lo and behold, shortly after announcing that filters were coming... some 18 hours later it's still not there in the App store. Click, refresh, click refresh, click refresh...nope, still not there. Oh how I so want that little red circle to change from 2 to the number 3 and for it to be there.

All joking aside (you got that reference yet?), I think it's a pity that two of my favourite ever social playgrounds appear to be at loggerheads. It's not a war as most people are calling it. A war involves guns and fighting and bad things happening. It's a disagreement, ultimately about money, and the making of it. Of course Instagram wants to make some more, I mean who in their right minds could live off 100 million, right? Of course Twitter wants to get rid of their once nice bedfellow after they only went and shacked up with the black sheep (FB) of the social family. Why can't they all just get along nicely? eh.

Me, well I'll still use both. At the last count i currently have 39 photo taking or photo editing apps on my phone. I love mobile photography and the wise people say, the best camera is the one you've got with you to capture that moment. I will never have too many filters in my life. The more the merrier. But what i love about Instagram is not only my beloved Amaro, XProII and Brannan filters, but the fact that people give you a little love heart when they 'like' your picture or that they can leave a comment on your picture. It's those little things that may be lost with Twitter filters. I mean we could 'star' them as favourites but then no one else would see that would they?

How you see the Likes

Instagram gives you all the pictures you want to see in your feed. Those people you have actively followed because they take the most wonderfully shot pictures with a phone. There are people who aren't necessarily on Twitter or they no longer tweet but give great Instagram. There's the brands who really excel at Instagram - Red Bull, Sharpie, Converse. It's a whole little mini social network within the wider landscape.

little like hearts and comments - love

With Twitter you get all the tweets and pictures from the folk you like to tweet and chat to, but man some of them can't take a picture to save themselves. Sorry folks. Also there's the thrill of checking your newsfeed in Instagram and seeing that X number of people liked your picture enough to 'like' it. Likes = Lovehearts *swoon*. Now don't say that doesn't bother you because evidently it does, we all want a little bit of loving, enough if it's just on the snapshots we take of our lives. Incidentally, a few weeks ago Instagram released a web platform whereby all your pics are stored and displayed in a grid format. You can also like and comments on photos there. Here's mine http://instagram.com/ange77h/

ooh look, shiny shiny lovely web Instagram thingy

How will Twitter let me (and others know) when my pictures are liked? Perhaps Twitter filters are not meant to be used in that way. Perhaps they're just filters. Whatever they are i can't wait to use them too. I hope they're worth the wait. The Cinema filter looks akin to Instagram's Brannan so I'm sure it'll feature heavily in my picture tweets. Brace yourselves. I'm gonna filter the shit out of all of my photos from now on.

Oh, and that reference.... here it is Ah ha ha hahahaha ah ho hee hee. Why so serious!

Play safe, kids.

Angela x

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Face-Stagram

Yes, that's right, according to rumours will be the new hip place where all the cool kids hang out on t'internet - Face-Stagram! Okay, okay so I lied but it's just over a week now since the announcement about Facebook buying Instagram was made and I'm glad the dust has settled.

my home screen: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Camera+ All the my fave apps

It was inevitable that someone was going to buy Instagram. We live in a more visual world than ever before and images are everywhere. Instagram made it easier to share lovely pictures with people across the globe. Adding one of their filters means that even the most kak-handed of us (not me btw!) can post decent enough looking pictures. Our brains process pictures in a different way than words. A famous example is the TV debates between Nixon and Kennedy. Radio debates showed Nixon in the lead, but when they hit TV Kennedy was an outright leader in the polls. He was a master at the little facial expressions, and I think he even wore make up! So you see people judge on site first and foremost and so pictures are real popular.

I've been an avid Instagram user since the week it went public back in October 2010. At the time I only followed a few people I knew on there but slowly over the 2 short years I've built up quite a good little visual playground for myself in the form of my Instagram feed. It's sitting at 205 just now, deliberately much less than Twitter. For you see I don't want to be bombarded with every Tom, Dick or Jason's silly pictures. I've collated a number of cool people and brands from a range of backgrounds and locations across the globe. Aside from Twitter, it's the first place i check each morning when I wake. I like to see what's gone on around the world via the varying images from numerous time-zones. I like to see the photos that have been captured lovingly or on the hoof. Maybe it's my natural nosiness inside.

Anyway, back to the deal. A Billion Dollars. $1Billion. Let's not think about that too much. After all it's not a truck full of cash delivered to the Instagram team is it. There'll be shares and the like. Maybe? But why did Mark Zuckerberg, seemingly on a whim, buy Instagram for that much money? Probably not data, let's Face it they have pretty much cornered the market with that one. Mobile Photography is more like it. Rumour has it (not sure where I got that from) that the deal was done in two days! Zuck to Kev: I wanna buy Instagram, how much will it cost? Kev to Zuck: Errrrr...(leans back in chair and plucks a number out of thin air) A billion?.... (laughs like a child who's just swore for the first time) Zuck to Kev: Okay then! Where do we sign?. Kev: (falls off chair, rolls over, does the dance - you know the one, scrambles back onto the chair, clears his throat) Deal!
And so the deal was done. I'd like to think that's how it went down. In my mind it happened like that. *winky eye face*

Everyone's gone mobile #SadDigitalCamera  ~ Taken on Instagram

So, why did he buy? Mobile! Mobile photography. Mobile. Much has been said about the rubbishness of the Facebook mobile apps and that the photo interface has, until recently, been pretty bland. But now, look what they have. Potential new Facebookers? (we'll come back to this later). I don't know about you but i certainly do hit share to Facebook on some Instagram photos. It even puts them into an Instagram album automagically. I mostly use this method because they're fab pictures of my nephews and my family only follow me on Facebook, especially ones who stay far away. So I like to share those moments I've captured on Facebook too. But it's easy now to with a smart phone and a decent app, enter Instagram.

Some people got a bit hysterical when the deal was announced. "I'm leaving Instagram" was the cry. Well I'm not. Some people were posting links to new photo apps, but the beauty of Instagram for me is the simplicity, the ease of use, the fact that you can follow people and they can follow you, you can share to most social networks (well that ones that everyone's uses lets face it), the filters are pretty (who remembers the astro filter?!) and it was the original. And I like that. It's not always about the next new thing, it's about the original.

One thing I didn't like was a i read a tweet from someone who claimed that 'creatives' like them would all leave and a certain faction would be left. Hmmm... Just because I don't work in the creative industry does not mean i am not creative. It was a silly tweet from someone who has posted no more than twenty photos, if you're lucky! Grrr. Sometimes the downright snobbery in social networks gets right on my nerves. There's a lot of it around.(another post maybe).

mobile photography

I'll end by saying Congrats to the small but perfectly formed Instagram team! I hope that the statements from both Instagram and Facebook are upheld and they don't tinker about with it too much. Perhaps a few extra filters? Perhaps a better Facebook mobile service? who knows. But just like Darcy told Jones in the movie... I like it just the way it is.

ooh! Before I go perhaps you might want to have a watch of this video I found about 6 weeks ago. It's Kevin Rose interviewing Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram). Interesting, inspiring and well worth a watch. Love his thinking behind Instagram - hits thoughts about the early days, focusing on photos only, with XProII being the first filter. Turns out that was a great move!

Angela x

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