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My new favorite thing…Instagram

instagram-logoMany of you have heard of Instagram (or even used it).
Everyone else however may be asking “What’s Instagram?”.

Before I go in to telling you why I love Instagram, I’ll explain what its’ all about.

Instagram is a photo-sharing app that is on (at the time of writing this) the iPhone. Mostly this is the case because of its amazing camera (well the iPhone 4 & 4s that is). Instagram recently announced that an Android version of the app is coming, but no firm date as of yet.

<<UPDATE>> Good news Android users – you can now get Instagram for Android too!

 

Here’s a bit about the rise of Instagram

  • Launched on the 6th October 2010
  • It was in the no.1 slot on the App Store within 24 hours of launch
  • It became the iPhone App of the week
  • It holds the record as the quickest App to reach 1 million downloads
  • An Instagram photo made the cover of the Wall Street journal
  • In early march 2012 the App has over 25 million downloads!

Taking photos on your phone is nothing new & you have been able to add them to social networks such as Facebook & Twitter for some time too. What makes Instagram so good is that it gives you the option to add some interesting effects to your images and does all this within one app.

Instagram has social stuff in there to share the images to all your favorite sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but is in fact a social network in itself. You can build up followers & follow others, search for images that interest you & ‘like’ them, as you would on Facebook.

What Instagram does

  • Photo Sharing – You can take pictures within the app or use photos that already exist in your camera roll. You can tag your image to help others see it.
  • Photo Manipulation – The ‘smart’ bit about Instagram is that it has a lot of different filters you can use to enhance your pic.
  • Social Integration – Easily share your images with your other friends & followers on your social networks at the same time.
  • Follow great photographers – Instagram, like any other social network, is based around having friends or followers. You can find other Instagramers in a number of ways, traditional searches or by geographical location. Great for getting inspiration.
  • Comment on others photos – People ask questions in the comments, such as “where was this taken?”  Once you get into using Instagram, you will see how laid back people are and how much fun they are having.  It’s currently a very friendly community.
  • ‘Like’ photos – Show your ‘like’ for a photo by double tapping the image to give it a ‘like’. The more you get, the more popular that will become, and if you build up enough you could make the ‘popular page’ on Instagram.
  • Speed – It’s so quick & easy to use. As it’s on your phone it’s connected directly to the internet, no messing around with memory  cards or cables.

Ash's instagram pics.

Why I love this App

I have two (among others) big interests in my life. One is technology (this includes the internet). The other is photography.

These are often linked, but can also be quite different (partly why I like photography). As technology, particularly the internet, takes over a large part of my life (it is my job after all), I don’t always do enough photography to keep that part of my life happy. Enter Instagram.

Instagram allows me to be creative with my photography on a small-scale. I don’t always carry my digital SLR around with me, but I do carry my iPhone everywhere. It allows me to keep my eye trained on looking for a good shot.

When I do get time to get out there with the DSLR (digital SLR camera) I haven’t become rusty with composition, and with the added social aspect of Instagram, I get inspiration from millions of other great images. I also love getting a glimpse into the everyday lives of people who I’ll never meet, who live in completely different cultures than I do, and also like-minded people who live in the same town as me, which I may never have seen any of their photos without this app. Amazing.

Check out Instagram for yourself and

</start shameless plug>Follow me on Instagram snaphappyashbryant</end shameless plug>

Ash.

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