8 Photo Apps in 8 Days

Before my trip to Washington DC, I came across a list of cool (and free) photography apps for the old Iphone. I thought that eight days was a bit too long to be away from the office, so in my absence I took some photos to see how cool these apps really are. One app for every day. Here goes...

Day 1. Glitche

Glitche - Gaza Conflict Protester

Glitche is a little limited in its functions unless you spend all of your time at gigs, surrounded by matrix graphics and drinking yourself towards oblivion. Essentially it distorts your picture, adds visual glitches, gives you the option to add effects and take the pixels into an almost-3D-space. So, it’s never going to create beautiful pictures. It’s useful if you want to create that edgy look but I doubt I’ll find a use for it again. The best I came up with is this…a relatively minor glitche.

If you're interested in my reasoning, I thought it might reflect the somewhat skewed vision we all have of various world conflicts, as we can only ever really receive part of the full story. Or at least, that's the best reason I can come up with.

Day 2. Dubble

Cats & The White House

Dubble is a clever and fascinating concept. The app allows you to share your picture with the world instantly but even better that, it pairs it with another photo from across the globe. This is a little gem if you like surprises. Granted, the results don’t always work, for example my photo of the White House was ‘Dubbled’ first with a picture of cats (see right). But what’s great about the app is when a ‘Dubble’ DOES work. It’s quite cool to think a masterpiece could be created with someone you’ve never met. Try it out – it’s free! Here are a few of my favourites.

Abe Lincoln in the sky

I saw this homeless man every day.
I like this Dubble, as it suggests that there is someone out there who thinks about him.

The faces of the Vietnam Memorial & the Berlin wall
I like this not only because of its political resonance, but it implies transcendence.

Day 3. EyeEm

EyeEm - Capitol Building

EyeEm is very similar to Instagram, only it has something a little special on the side. It works in the same way, in that you scroll through filters until you find one you like, you then chose a frame. But what EyeEm does which is great, is allow you to map your location, or what it is a picture of, which will then mean you are able to see all other EyeEm user photos of the same thing. It’s clever as it encourages you to think about your smart phone photography in a way that perhaps we don’t normally. It also allows you to compare your photos with other photographers which is a great way of creating an online community like Flickr but at your fingertips. Here’s my photo of the Capitol Building using EyeEm!

Day 4. Seene

Seene is a really cool concept. The idea is that you capture slight movement of the image you wish to create, moving your camera up, down, left and right until the sensor markers go green. The picture is then automatically created for you, with a 3D look to it, that allows the image to move upon changing the angle of your device. Great, right?

Well it would be if it worked. Firstly, your subject has to sit completely still with the same expression or pose exactly. Secondly, you have to have the steadiest pair of hands in the world, so attempting these pictures from the seat above the wheel arch of Abe’s transportation was not the best idea I’ve ever had.

So, I failed at this one. I kept losing my patience with trying to capture all four movements with the camera, as the sensors are overly sensitive. I hate failing, so here’s an attempt at a Seene of the pint I enjoyed and 'captured' before my trip instead…

Day 5. Repix

Repix - Virgin, LHR to Washington DC

So Repix is again, another photo app with yet another list of filters. It allows you to play with saturation, brightness, temperature, contrast and intensity. It allows you to choose a frame. There are two things that Repix has that other apps don’t however, and although they aren’t particularly useful in every photo, some lend themselves well. For example, light flare worked well when I attempted to take a photo of my Virgin plane’s wing midflight. Repix’ function to add raindrops also worked well for me, when taking a picture of the US Marine Memorial. It adds a sense of struggle to the scene. I know I wouldn’t use the app often but if a need ever appears again for rain and flare, then I’ll know where to go.

Repix - US Marine Memorial

Day 6. Melodigram

Melodigram has a bit of a rubbish interface but it’s a good one if you’re all for capturing single moments as memories. It allows you to take a picture, add music AND capture ambient sound. Whilst walking around Georgetown, Washington, my ears were filled with the sound of crickets, but not those week-willed British crickets..ohh no, these bad boys sang to me in a gospel choir of cricket crescendo. Unfortunately I don’t think the recording did the sound justice at all, but I do like the idea. I think the software could just use a bit of help in development to make it user friendly, and my Iphone needs a better mic.

Click the links to decide for yourself!

Crickets: http://melodigram.com/g/zRFg898aP62ZbFdFQKwt75 

Jazz Club, Bohemian Caverns: http://melodigram.com/g/FvfBCMDPaCtATzn9a3SDYg

Day 7. Tadaa

Tadaa - Route 66 - Washington DC

Tadaa, just like all of the others has filters, frames and editing abilities… although I could not for the life of me figure out how to crop without skewing the image. Maybe you can advise me? I rather like the final edit of the image of the Route 66 sign but there’s far too much sky and space to the right hand side. Route 66 always gives off a dusty, dirty windscreen vibe to me with it stretching through Texas and Nevada desert country, hence why I went for an aged and dirty effect. Tadaa allows you to share images via social media but does not host its own community which maybe is a good thing. It’s not competing with Instagram but merely allows you to share the cool images you create with the Instagram community. I rather like this app, I’d use it again, if I could work out the crop tool.

Day 8. Instagram

Finally I returned to my old buddy Instagram. It’s just so easy to use, its filters work to help bring out the light in areas that aren’t quite visible within your picture at the click of a button. It allows you to manipulate brightness if you need to, add frames but without an endless list of choices and allows direct upload to all the favourite social channels, including its very own. You can even use hashtags and if that's not innovation, then I don't know what is! 

Instagram - Washington Memorial #twilight

Martin Luther King Memorial

Stereotypical Yellow Taxi - Georgetown M St.

As cool as some of the features on these apps are, I don’t have time to sift through so many options to edit my photo, by that time I’ve missed another (possibly better) photo opportunity. I don’t like it on such a small screen, or editing my on-the-go photos so intently, that’s what my laptop’s for. I still prefer Instagram over all these others, with EyeEm and Dubble coming in at a close second, just because I rather like surprises and the idea of sharing photos with other photographers.

And if you think all these apps are for amateurs, then think again! Take a look at Mashable's suggestion to follow these 8 professional photographers on Instagram!!!
http://mashable.com/2014/08/17/instagram-famous-photographers/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-socmed-link 

Twitter Usage - US & the UK

We live in a world obsessed with connectivity and socializing, whether that be at live events, at a bar or through social media, namely, on twitter. I've been looking into the twitter demographic in the UK and US and it seems that there are some trends to consider when tweeting on behalf of our UK businesses amidst a diverse online community that sends out (are you sitting down?) over 500 million tweets a day!

Quick Tips

• There are over 50 million active UK Twitter users and a similar number in the US
• The US and UK markets are very different
• US users like to express opinion and be bold, therefore businesses are more prone to appeals to emotion and personal incredulity to connect with their users and drive debate.
• UK users like to speak positively about experiences, engage and connect with others and post links that they feel are relevant to their followers. Businesses should aim to continue this trend of positivity in their brand, and with their partners and followers. Acknowledging user opinion (particularly where positive) is a great way to increase user activity and brand awareness.

So How Do We Know?

www.360i.co.uk/reports/twitter-usage-u-s-u-k/

According to research, US users are more emotive in their tweets, and tend to express more outward anger and personal opinion. Brits prefer to speak about joy and excitement to bring others into the conversation. So it's good to be positive about your brand. It’s very hard to comment on someone’s tweet about an argument with their spouse, not so hard to engage in a conversation about drinking beer. 

UK twitter users are 21% more likely to engage in conversations on Twitter. In the US however, tweets are more likely to be opinion-based original content or a retweet of a celebrity.

www.360i.co.uk/reports/twitter-usage-u-s-u-k/

Prime time for tweeting is different between the nations too. In the UK, we are more likely to delve into the twitter universe during tea breaks or lunch time, merging work and free-time together, whereas US users tend to tweet most in the evening, during their leisure time. Perhaps this explains the tweet content, with UK users tweeting about things they've discovered during their working day and US users tweeting their opinions about that lady’s dress on American Idol or the frustration at burning the *insert stereotypical American food here.

www.360i.co.uk/reports/twitter-usage-u-s-u-k/

Finally; engagement in brands. US users like to share their opinions of the brand, whereas UK users are more likely to tweet a review of a brand - how reliable it is, how snazzy it looks (yes, I used the word snazzy) and how well it serves its purpose. Over 50% of US brand tweets consist of entertainment references whereas in the UK, we tend to talk about a wide range of brand related topics from services and retail to food and technology. So again, that's worth thinking about when targeting your audience.

It is worth bearing in mind that the study I refer to, may not be accurately representative of the entire twitter community, as it is based upon just 400 tweets from the US and the UK. However, the findings are all trends that are quite visible online if you take the time to explore and I found it fascinating when thinking about FW's social output - I thought you might do too!

What is even more interesting, is to know how many users there are on ALL of our most popular social media tools and apps. How many people are we ACTUALLY reaching out to across various platforms?
This link takes you to a list of stats for over 600 of these tools and is really quite useful.  http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/#.U8Zr8vldV8E

SOURCES

http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-has-a-surprisingly-small-number-of-us-users-2013-10

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/analyst-twitter-passed-500m-users-in-june-2012-140m-of-them-in-us-jakarta-biggest-tweeting-city/

http://www.360i.co.uk/reports/twitter-usage-u-s-u-k/
https://about.twitter.com/company