Anything Goes Wednesday - iPhone Photo Apps Instagram + Shnap!

I think I am going to change the format slightly to these Wednesday blog posts AGAIN, it seems they are just getting full of too much stuff to be only one post that they should split into two posts to make the information easier to digest. Like last Wednesday for example where I blogged about preview photos for Angela & Eugene, previews for Makeba & Floyd, photos of our Memorial Day party, and announcing our new Military Discount. I mean seriously that’s a lot for one post, whereas the Monday posts are targeted to be all about one particular photo shoot whether it’s Brandi & Bryan’s Engagement Session in Stone Mountain or KyAnne & Brett’s Beach Wedding on Tybee Island.

So today is going to be a quick blog post about something random and off topic since this is “Anything Goes Wednesday” and change Friday’s into “Weekend Preview” or something :).

Anyone that meets me in person immediately knows I am glued to my iPhone… well to be honest, maybe Betty is too, but I just love everything you can do with what is now more than ever a computer in your pocket! If you recall from a couple months ago I wrote about iPhonography/iPhotography and gave some of my favorite camera or photo apps. Well I wanted to update that post to what I am currently addicted to: Instagram and Shnap!.

Living in Downtown Atlanta, we walk around quite a bit through the Broad Street Dining District near GSU. It’s right where Betty’s PhD student office is inside the GSU College of Business and also where we meet rental customers picking up lenses or cameras from Camera Concierge. iPhone in hand, I’ve started snapping more and more street photos of the various tourists, business people, and students that roam these crowded streets and street photography with my iPhone has become a new obsession as of late. The app I am using to post these to the world is none other than Instagram.

I posted my first Instagram photo back in November of 2010, probably not long after my iPhonography/iPhotography post was written and it has quickly replaced most of the apps mentioned in the original post besides Camera+. The ease of use to quickly create an interesting photo using the filters and then publish that photo to the Instagram community or Facebook/Twitter/etc makes Instagram one of my go-to photo applications.

If you are an iPhone users I highly recommend this app, the community of commenting and viewing other’s photos is probably the best part of the application besides it’s price… which is F-R-E-E! If you are using a computer only have no fear, you can view my full stream of Instragmmed photos over on Extragram at this link: http://extragr.am/users/307423/photos . When I look at those photos myself I get nostalgic because I see photos from when Betty was in the hospital with Miles and from when he was first born, awwwww :).

My second recommendation is a brand new app that was just released recently, called Shnap! and also free from the iTunes App Store.

The idea behind Shnap is simple and yet fills an important niche that no other photo app (that I’m aware of) does, rating photos. Much like Instagram, the fun is in the community aspect as you see what your friends are posting online. Besides simply “liking” a photo like you would on Facebooking, you rate photos on a scale of 1-5 and earn points for each rating. Why the points? It costs you points to post a photo, so you have an incentive to rate other’s photos so that your own photos can be posted. It’s a clever ecosystem that encourages sharing and participating, and posting “good” photos that will themselves be rated highly in order to earn more bonus points.

Give both Shmap! and Instagram a try (they’re both FREE) and add me as a friend! I am posting on both systems as “zacharylong”

That’s it for today’s quick post to keep me more on-topic for once. Wednesday was a sort of busy day for us with Betty attending the monthly Cocktails & Cameras and then I’m heading to a Wedlock event with Alan Berg in Decatur this evening. I’ve still got a lot to write about like scouting the Chattahoochee for shoot locations on Tuesday or how we filmed a YouTube video with the iPhone to of course talking about our recent weddings in Decatur at the Thalia N Carlos Hellenic Center, Engagement Shoot with Trina & Shawn in Piedmont Park, wedding in Snellville, and last Saturday’s wedding in Loganville at the Vines Mansion. Whew!

Until next time…

Zachary Long is a one of the best wedding photographers in Atlanta if he does say so himself. Besides being addicted to posting iPhone 4 photos to Instagram and Shnap he is available for weddings throughout the greater Atlanta Metro area and beyond and shoots in a modern, creative photojournalistic style.