Instagram: The ‘homeless’ chief executive

I have said in the past how I find the excuse of ‘art’ or worse ‘arty’ Instagram pictures pointless and irritating. The application of filters to a dull image does not make it art. However if it encourages people to take more pictures and to do that with purpose and seriously then I have to concede it is a positive thing. This story found on the BBC and written by Phil Coomes is interesting in that the protagonist uses his Instagram daily posts to ensure he gets out and looks.

Cillin Perera travels a lot. As the chief executive of a couple of companies, he is constantly moving from one place to another and, like many others, has turned to photography to record his journeys and keep in touch with family and friends.

He began taking pictures on his phone and rediscovered his love of photography, something he had not done since his days at Harvard in the late 1990s.

Soon he was using an iPod to shoot, with the results being uploaded to Instagram under the name @homelessCEO – his username reflecting his nomadic existence.

see the rest here

 

INSTAGRAM PHOTO COMPETITION FOR YOUNG EUROPEANS

Are you a young European under 26? Are you a photo enthusiast? Do you think Europe can be ‘Instagrammed’? 

This month we are asking young Europeans to post an interesting image (or two!) of an alternative energy source. The theme is connected to increasing the share of renewable energy to 20 % by 2020!

Image to be posted on Instagram under the hashtag: “#energy_goes_insta”

The shortlisted finalists selected based on the highest number of likes will win a trip to Brussels (visit of the European Commission premises and the European Parliament) and also have the chance to win a tour of the set during the production of the RTL TV show “YOLO – Das große W” in an exotic location across the EU (2015).

Please note the following:
– the entries should be sent via Instagram before 15 May
– the participants should not be older than 25
– the Instagram profile of the participants should be set as “public” so we can find the entry

Here is a competition that may interest you, personally I don’t care about Instagram at all, it is not real photography although I concede it is image making. The application of filters to make something more interesting flies completely in the face of creative artists for whom one click wonders must be an anathema

Full details here

Is It Worth Sticking With Flickr?

Flickr is fast approaching it’s ten year birthday and has had over 8 billion photographs uploaded to it but in recent years it has been overtaken by services like 500px, Instagram and even Facebook when it comes to deciding where to share your photos on the web. It’s not so much that Flickr was offering a bad service, it was just offering almost the same service as when it started up.

After rumours that Yahoo! may be looking to let Flickr go or even close it down a new CEO, Marissa Mayer, was appointed mid-way through last year and things have started to change. So is it worth sticking with Flickr? Let’s look at the pros and cons…read more here

On Lightstalking  Mark McGowan writes. Mark is a UK based urban landscape and architectural photographer, looking for the hidden details of city life, trying to show the city from a different point of view. You can visit his website here.

Alison Ryde

The Oxford School of Photography Flickr group can be found here

Click Here: Is It Worth Sticking With Flickr?

Photojournalist launches watermark app for iPhone photos

As told to Olivier Laurent at the BJP. Photojournalist John D McHugh has released a watermarking app on the iPhone in a bid to root out copyright theft on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram……..

“I developed the Marksta app because I was tired of people stealing my work on the web,” says Marksta’s founder, John D McHugh, a photojournalist best known for his work in Afghanistan. “I often work in incredibly dangerous situations to show the world the stark realities of war and revolution. I can’t describe how frustrating it is to find my images online without any credit or byline.”

 Rather than fight what can’t be fought, he says, “I’ve tried to adapt my thinking to the cold hard reality that as soon as I post a photograph online it will be copied, shared and posted around the world. If I want people to know it’s mine, whether for payment or just kudos, I see no way other than to write my name on it.”

To do so, McHugh enlisted the help of a developer to create an iPhone app that would streamline the process of adding a watermark to images.….MORE

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2233605/photojournalist-launches-watermarking-app-on-the-iphone#ixzz2IiVZnSBp
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What is photography?

Well in this instance it is Phil Coomes of the BBC talking about the use by photo-journalists of Instagram as a way of increasing the awareness of a more serious set of pictures about a subject.

Yet what is photography if not something that shapes the world? It captures a moment in time and renders it in two dimensions; it’s down to the skill and authority of the photographer to select the right moment and view that will ensure the tones and shapes in the frame lead the viewer to want to know more about the subject. writes Coomes

Mendel released a number of pictures via the photography app, Instagram….This has created something of a split among photographers and editors as to whether such an approach is acceptable.

So what do you think, read Phil Coomes on the BBC website here, see if you agree

Drowning world by Gideon Mendel

The debate about what is photography was one we had during the most recent Intermediate Photography course, new dates are now available for the next term, you can see those dates here

The World’s Best Food Photography Competition

After an incredibly successful debut year, the international Pink Lady^® Food Photographer of the Year 2013 is now open for entries!  (Don’t you just hate the way press releases and teenagers use too many exclamation marks, or is it just me?)

This year’s award also introduces four exciting new categories for entrants. The hotly anticipated Food off the Press category for previously published work in books and magazines will open up the competition to a wider range of entries. Similarly, the Food Snapping category is for images of food taken on mobile phones, and is in support of Action Against Hunger.

The third and fourth categories are Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year, for images of wine, producers and all things related to the subject and Food for Celebration, images of festive, celebratory food from across the world.

Full details of this competition to find the best food photography can be found here

1st Place 2012 Jeff Adler

2nd Place 2012 Tim Clinch

3rd Place 2012 Jonathan Gregson

All the winners images are available to buy on the website as is all the information about the 2013 competition

Has Instagram made everyone’s photos look the same?

From the BBC

“Instagram, the photo app, has been sold to Facebook for $1bn. But has it sparked a wave of generic retro-looking snaps, asks photographer Stephen Dowling. Instagram – and its bedfellows such as Hipstamatic, Camerabag and Picplz – have brought to digital photography a fever for a certain style of imagery. Smartphone photos are given saturated colours and Polaroid-style borders, dark vignettes, light leaks and lens flare like those that plagued the Kodak moments of previous generations. It may be 2012, but popular photography hasn’t looked like this since the early 1970s.

The trend began a few years ago with Hipstamatic, an app which apes the look of lo-fi toy cameras. Now Instagram allows a pic to be taken on your smartphone, a digital “filter” to be applied, and the resulting pic made viewable to the site’s ever-increasing community. Chances are that that artfully retro pic of a display of cupcakes your friend showed you at the weekend was an Instagram pic.”

Continue reading the main story

Before and after…

Applying Instagram’s X-Pro II filter to the image for a more “vintage” feel

“Launched in March 2010, Instagram took until the end of that year to notch up its millionth user but from there its ascent was dizzying. Just 15 months later there are more than 30 million account holders and a billion pictures on the site’s servers. That’s a lot of cupcakes.

Instagram’s use of filters mimics some of the processes photographers used to push photographic boundaries – such as the super-saturated colours created cross-processing slides in negative chemicals, or using expired film’s palette of soft, muted colours, or playing around with camera settings or darkroom equipment to boost contrast.”.…..MORE…….

I think this conclusion is where my thoughts lie..

“The ability to turn an everyday pic into something “artistic” at the click of a button is the very embodiment of digital photography’s curse of convenience – no long learning curves, or trial and error with expensive rolls of film. But is it creative?

Writer and photographer Kate Bevan doesn’t think so.

“Do I think it’s artistically valid? No. I think it kills the creative instinct. However, I do love sharing and I understand the mindset that wants to make his or her pics stand out, even though Instagram does the opposite of that.” The first time one sees a picture with an Instagram-type filter applied, it might be impressive. But the thousandth time? “I’m all in favour of people experimenting with pictures, and I’d never be elitist about photography,” suggests Bevan. “But I don’t think it encourages experimentation – it encourages the use of lazy one-click processing.”..…..MORE

What do you think?

 

Need an Instagram Alternative? This Photo App Has Old-School Filters

So I am ambivalent about the use of camera phones for a means of making photographs. For me they are just too damn random, something which I am sure is part of the appeal to the regular user. I know people who just love Instagram, friends whose FB pages are just awash with rather boring images given a treatment to make them more interesting, my view is take better pictures. Anyway, not one to stand in the face of progress, I am no Canute or Luddite, here is a brief piece about an alternative to Instagram in case you are concerned by the world domination plans of Mark Zuckerberg.

“Many Instagram users decided to delete the app, after news broke of Facebook‘s $1 billion acquisition of the wildly popular photo app, with approximately 30 million users.

Regular smartphone photos may be too muted or rectangular for these former Instagram addicts. Enter Pinweel.

Instagram users expressed their concern with Facebook’s purchase of their favorite photo app due to privacy concerns. On the in-app camera, there is a simple on-screen flash button, one that rotates the frame and 10 beautiful filters to apply, named by years. Filter “1931″ makes square black-and-white photos, while “1987″ outlines photos like a Polaroid. Our favorite is “1999,” which washes frames over with a sunny yellow, orange tinge.

After the picture is taken, you can push it on Facebook or Twitter. You can also share photos with friends and family by creating private and public albums.”....MORE