Photo apps you'd like to find under the tree

sent via iphone with Hipstamatic and Motion Picture app effects. (and thanks richard koci hernandez for the app suggestion.)

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Added later:

I hadn't see any iPhone apps that could upload directly to Blogger, so we tried the Motion Picture app, and here are the results. Pretty slick. Also, the tremendous number of photo apps for mobile phones makes makes me wish that we had as many choices when we're editing photos at the desktop.

Along those lines, here's a list of the photo apps I like the best. I'm always watching for new ones, and you probably are too. Feel free to share any that you like a lot:

Hipstamatic: Of course. Easily one of the all-time greats. They got the effects really right, and so what if you see them everywhere? They're beautiful.

Instagram: The latest and the greatest way to share photos with your friends and the photo community. (See post below for more thoughts.)

Mill Colour: A very sophisticated set of controls for adjusting gamma, exposure, and other values, with a nice set of effects, as well.

Best Camera: The mobile phone app from Chase Jarvis, based on the thinking that the best camera is the one you have with you. Heavy emphasis on sharing and participating, but the effects aren't the most interesting. But it's impossible to argue with the logic: Photography isn't about the equipment, it's about vision.

Camera Bag: One of the best early apps, and I find myself still using it for the "Helga" effect alone. Simple and straightforward, a very easy way to take, process, and share mobile photos.

PS Express: The photo app from Photoshop, and how can you quibble with the masters of image handling? Still, it's not my favorite app for adjusting values; the sliders are clunky and inexact when I use them, but your results may vary.

Lo Mob: An extensive library of film-like effects, everything from overlapping 35mm film in a medium format camera to through-the-viewfinder looks. Worth it just for the niche factor.

Photogene: My favorite app for making simple adjustments to exposure and levels and for cropping. Easy and straightforward, and easy sharing, too.

The Photographers Ephemeris: An amazingly powerful app that can help you get that picture of, say, the full moon rising over Alcatraz Island. The app lets you plot the paths of the rising and setting sun and moon, and figure out when and where you  have to be to get the shot you want. Really good for when you're getting ready to travel.

Quad Camera: Take four shots in quick succession, and this app will combine them into one photo for you. You can also adjust the time between shutter clicks.

Photo Calc: A very nice reference tool to have in your pocket for figuring out equivalent exposures, depth of field values and other basic but sometimes complicated stuff. No math required, which in my book is a big plus.

Photo Studio: A vast selection of effects, and the cool thing here is that you can layer them any way you like, then save the process as a preset to use again.

Strobox: Did you come up with a lighting configuration that you'd like to save? Or did you come across one that you'd like to try later? This app makes it easy to generate lighting diagrams.

Camera Plus: The interesting thing here is that pictures are saved to a "lightbox," where you can process and post them later. It makes it possible to take pictures faster and then let the phone crunch the big files later.

Shake It: Instant photography for the mobile phone. Development is affected by motion, so you can shake your phone like you used to shake your Polaroid while it developed.

True HDR: This app takes three exposures at different exposure values, then merges them for an HDR-like result. I've had mixed success with this one, but they seem to be rolling out updates on a regular basis, so it's worth watching as the app evolves.

Blend Cam: Take multiple exposures with your phone, or layer images from your photo library. You get to choose a variety of blending modes, too. Very cool, very fun.

360: A very easy way to take 360-degree panoramic photographs. No stitching necessary.

Get the truth about your photos

Gary Fong gives extremely valuable photo critiques at the We Are Photographers photo site.

This isn't the Gary Fong who sells the Lightsphere and other flash modifiers. This is the Gary Fong who, among other things, has been a jurist for the Pulitzer Prize, been a judge for the Picture of the Year competition run by the National Press Photographers Association, was twice named the Photographer of the Year by the California Press Photographers Association, and five times was named the Photographer of the Year by the SF Bay Area Press Photographers Association.

You want credentials? He's got credentials.

If you'd like to improve your photography, and especially if you want to become a better photojournalist, Gary has opinions worth listening to. I haven't summoned the courage to undergo one of his critiques, but I sure learn a lot from reading what he has to say about the work of other photographers. Gary tells the truth, and that's a rare gift.

On Instagram and Flickr

I signed up with Instagram the other day, like a lot of other people have been doing lately. The new photo-sharing site has about 500,000 members now, after going live only about six weeks ago. Amazing.  Lightning in a bottle.

And as Robert Scoble found out during an interview with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, most of those new users are from places other than Silicon Valley and New York, which is good. It may seem like Instagram is just a new photo fad for the cool kids, but it's obviously become a lot more than that, and fast.

(A personal ancedote: The other night, I took a look at the photostream of someone who had started following me on Instagram, and I was blown away. Beautiful stuff, and the photos were obviously not generated solely from the Instagram filters, which are admittedly  cool, but limiting. These photos were layered and double-exposed and imaginatively original and just plain fun to see. And the other fun thing was, I didn't recognize a single place I was seeing. Turns out the user was from southern Australia, near the water. A powerful new loose connection.)

So now Instagram has been a featured app of the week on iTunes, and the four very bright young people at the helm have the happy task of figuring out what to do next. No, Systrom told Scoble, they don't plan to go to the web immediately, but when they do they want to keep things simple and let users have a fresh new experience. No, they're not looking for ways to make money yet, they're just trying to keep up with demand on their infrastructure. Good for them, I say. (But Tech Crunch reported that they did sign their first major partnership today, and it was with National Geographic. Not a bad place to start.)


 Instagram is taking off because it is a simple, well-executed platform for launching your photos across most of the major social media outlets -- Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and .... oh the irony, Flickr!

Flickr! The original photo-sharing site of the digital age, or at least the one that made everyone stop and think about the possibilities. And It makes you wonder why Flickr didn't see, or chose to ignore, what was happening around them. Why aren't you able to send photos from Flickr to Facebook or Twitter?  Rather than ride the tsunami it created, Flickr turned inward. Their universe is limited to the people who are photographers and enthusiasts. Flickr invented photo sharing, ferchrissakes, and they should own the whole sector. But they don't.

Instagram, on the other hand, is positioning itself as the photo sharing site for all of social media. That's a very powerful place to be.

Stunning and amazing stop-motion graffiti

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Street artist BLU released a breathtaking new stop-motion graffiti video called “Big Bang Big Boom.” It’s a fascinating artistic piece on the beginning, and potential end to life on Earth. Blu also created MUTO, another wall animation in the same way, using public walls and street objects as an enormous canvas.

from  PetaPixel

A completely fabulous look at Los Angeles ... with no cars

Running on Empty from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

via Jim Heid