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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Photo A Day Challenge: March 2012

I cannot thank Chantelle from Fatmumslim enough for highlighting the Photoaday challenge. What started off as just January has now made it's way into March and she says will last all year. I am so loving this project. In mid February over 250,000 photos had been uploaded using the tag. Fantastic.

Last year i did try to do my own photo a day challenge but i didn't have a list to begin with so i kind of lost my way. I love that it's there on a list that i can check every day and compose, take and post my photo. I love different people's interpretations of the daily topics. It's great to see things through different eyes.

I'm trying to keep my Flickr page updated with my daily photo and mostly posting the photos via Instagram too, which helps. Why not join in too! Here is the list for March. My birthday month and the month the clocks go...forward? backwards? i always forget.

Happy snapping.

Angela x

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Photo a day challenge: February 2012

I've thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the photo a day challenge that I found over at FatMumSlim's blog. It seems that lots of other people have too because there's now a February one! Yay. And she's going to be doing it every month. Can't wait to see my year in photos, all 366 of them.

Here is the February edition. Join us!

Also, if you want to see the results of my January photoset head over to my Flickr page to see them. Pretty neat.

Angela x

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iPhonography with Camera+

As you know I'm a huge fan of Instagram, the app for iPhone that lets you capture moments and upload them straight away and share across your social networks. In all truth I'm just a big fan of iPhonography itself and if you ever get near my iPhone you'll discover 3 folders (which contain 16 apps) filled with lots of different photo apps. There's cameras, Adobe express, framing apps and generally anything to do with enhancing and taking pictures using the iPhone. On my home page, nestling in the corner beside Twitter and Instagram you'll find Camera+, another amazing iPhone app. It cost me 69p about 2 years ago and for 69p you get a whole bunch of iPhonography lushness. The app is produced by Tap Tap Tap and was given an overhaul last year. Introducing new filters, a better zoom and focus and for me it's just so easy to use. I currently have 200 photos saved in the app itself in the Lightbox, so good they are I can't bear to get rid of them once saved to the laptop.

In the app there are different camera settings such as...
SCENES - including clarity (love this one), portrait, scenery, auto, flash, fluorescent and more.
ADJUST - to rotate and flip the picture
CROP - to crop
FX EFFECTS - this is where you'll find 3 different folders. Color. Retro. Special, and another called Analogue that you have to pay for. Inside each folder there are 9 different filters. They are all great in their own way. A few of my favourites are vibrant, tail fins and Lo Fi, fashion and so emo.
BORDERS - are just that white, black, thick, thin, viewfinder, grit and the list goes on. All nice borders.

The camera has a stabilizer and burst setting. Admittedly I've not used that one that much but I'm getting there.
Lastly you have the Lightbox where all the photos you take are stored. You then have the option to save to the iPhone camera roll. Of course there is the option to share your pictures to your social networks (Twitter and Facebook), SMS, email and Flickr account.

Over on Mostly Lisa's blog (Lisa Bettany, co-creator of Camera+) I read a great post before Christmas about how to make the most of the app when capturing Christmas memories. Read it here. These are a couple of pictures I think I managed to capture quite well.

cute Santa ornament and tree

a little bokeh effect on the tree lights

And here are a few of my favourite photos I've captured on Camera +

before

after adding filter

Christmas present ceramic cupcake

before: no filter

after: Fashion filter

One of my all time favourite pictures. The detail on the droplets is amazing. 

I love a cloudy sky picture

Again clouds, just before a summer rainstorm hit

And so if you really love iPhonography, my advice to you would be to go out and spend 69p on a fabulous app, Camera+. You won't regret it. You can see more of my photos on the Camera+ website HERE.

Angela x

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Photo a day challenge: January 2012

Yes. That's right. I'm going to do one of those photo challenges as mentioned in the title. Simply because I love taking pictures. I may not be a photographer with all the equipment but I have an iPhone and a digital camera and that'll do me nicely. We all know i post loads of photos everywhere.

The challenge is over on Fatmumslim blog. See all the details here. What I'll do is post my daily photo on Twitter, Instagram, with Camera+, on Google+ but I'm going to collate them in a set in my Flickr account. See the wee box on the right hand side of this blog. The hash tag to be used is #JANphotoaday so that everyone who's taking part can see. And now for the challenge.
Listed below.

photo credit: fatmumslim.com.au

Hit that link above to Fatmumslim blog and you'll see more details.

Hope you enjoy.

Angela x
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My Hipstamatic Week

Hipstamatic in case you don't know is a really cool iPhone photography app - commonly known as iPhonography. I've had it for ages and i love the different film, flashes, lenses and camera cases you get with it. I've amassed quite a few pictures. I love playing about with different iPhonography apps and with this one you can even get your photos printed off and sent all the way from America. I've had a pack, they're pretty cool. Here's my week in Hipstamatic photos, Saturday 24 September - Saturday 1 October... enjoy! (picture heavy post ALERT!!)

New Converse RED - my sparky shoes

Edinburgh Castle - from behind

Princes Street barriers

jewel encrusted tiger in Harvey Nichols

favourite drink

navy nails

poorly Connor

new gym programme

Castle silhouette

what?...

Those feet again

too much Coke in Illegal Jack's

Dumyat

for you...

dangerous tree?!

yum

Halloween window

Angela x

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No Words Wedinsday Number a Hundred and sixty three

Moo frames for my mini cards

Sparkly nails, i'm doing this tonight

Havainas flip flops

Gym gear

A few photos from my Instagram feed. One of my favourite iPhone apps.

Angela x

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