Put On Your Dancing Shoes And Show Me What To Do I Know You've Got The Moves

     I'm always on the look out for inspiration:  how to get it and how to keep it.  So I can tell you guys how awesome I am at it and teach you a little something about it.  Okay, that's supposed to be funny.  But in all seriousness without ever thinking about it I am always on the hunt for the next thing that inspires me.  It might be a really amazing outfit in a magazine that makes me want to wear something like it or it might be a picture that makes me want to capture images just like that.  Our constant search for inspiration has led to the popularity of pinterest and millions of collages worldwide.
    I have numerous ways of keeping things that inspire me.  None of which are particularly better than the other.  

   There's Pinterest that I've already mentioned.  But I have 18 boards none of which have any specific rhyme or reason or that I really go back to.  I just want to make sure I can get back to that specific thing if I really want to.  Which leads me to sporadic pinning at best.  I guess that's a good thing since it has taken over so many people's lives but sometimes it leaves me wanting for more.  

    Which leads me to my next way of keeping inspiring things.  My "Inspiration" notebook.  It's just a composition book that has torn out pieces of magazines pasted in it.  Well, not exactly pasted.  I have used double sided tape because actual glue leads to those unseemly crinkles.  (If you're going to do something why not do it correctly?)  But I can spend hours on this and I rarely go back and look through.  Plus when I don't have time to go through magazine I end up with a pile I have to go through in one sitting.  Like I said before, it's a lot of work.  However, I love the idea that I can just flip the notebook open to any page and it would be something that I liked.  Plus to me fashion is just something that adds to each other (and it's all about your personal style) so things that I liked in fashion magazines back when I was in high school I still like/still could wear (if you really can wear anything straight out of a fashion magazine anyway).  What I'm trying to say is that my notebook is not really dated.  Well, maybe 10 years from now I'll look back on it and say wow that's what I was into?  Crazy! 

I said earlier that when I didn't have time to put things into my notebook my magazines ended up in piles.  

Hello, piles.  I just can't bare to throw them away before I have a chance to go through them at least to tear out whole pages!

I then neaten it up when I have a spare time or am really trying to procrastinate. 

   Then there is my current obsession and it maybe an obsession no one else shares, but its a website/app called 500px.  It's AMAZING.  All it is photographs uploaded by other photographers.  Man am I blown away by all of these photographers.  Most of them aren't even from the US most of them are actually from Russia or Germany.  But these pictures.  WOW.  I love them.  It makes me want to take more photographs.  The ones that I love the most are usually just portraits but the way you feel when you look at the photographs.  I'm not even sure I can even explain it.  Check it out for yourself.  You will be amazed.  But please don't be fooled by the photos on the homepage.  The photographs you find there are more like the ones below or the ones found on their blog.  And the popular, editor's pick, fresh, and upcoming photographs change constantly so you're always seeing new photographs. Some of the photographs are breathtaking because of their simplicity and others because of their complexity.  Either way it makes me want to get out there and take more pictures, especially portraits.  Heck, it even makes me want to go to photography class after class if it would mean I could take pictures like this.  I am INSPIRED.  

P.S. the photos below do not do the real thing justice by any means so please click on the link to see the real picture.

Untitled by Dmitry Kuznetsov

“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. by Jorge Moreno Jr

snowgirls by Serafima Mayakowskaya

   But I'm sure you have your own way of being inspired.  Something that speaks to the very core of who you are just like the fact that this website inspires me speaks to the photographer in me.

Title from the song "All My Own Stunts" by the Arctic Monkeys.

My Favorite iPhone Photo Apps

Just a small disclaimer before you even start reading:  1) I'm still counting this as my Wednesday blog, even if I didn't manage to post it before the clock struck midnight (this took more effort and time than I first thought) and b) I am including photos of myself in this blog for educational purposes (please excuse the silly faces!).

Yesterday I blogged about Instagram, today I thought I would share my favorite iPhone camera apps.  While I will never claim to be an expert on the subject, I am always looking for new and fun camera apps to use in my everyday life.  Usually I try not to pay for any of my apps because I am never sure which apps I will actually use on a day to day basis and I don't have any spare change to waste on applications.  However, if I use an app almost everyday I would never consider it a waste which is why I am recommending the apps that cost money first.  

Paid Apps:

Hipstamatic

Hipstamatic to me is the app that is the most fun.  It takes its cues from the Holga cameras of the world.  This app has so many options.  You can have as much control over the final picture by choosing the film, lens, flash, and even the case (though that doesn't really affect the picture).  The one catch is that most of the films, lenses, and flashes come in certain packages (that you have to buy in the app's store).  But once you have a good selection to choose from you can produce beautiful photographs that always look like a piece of art.  (You don't really even have to buy any packages to produce beautiful photos.)  There are also sales and sometimes free packages, but you have to be patient for these to come about.  My favorite part about this app is the "shake" feature.  If you shake your phone you get a surprise combination of film, lens, and flash.  I love that I never know what the picture will look like until it develops.   (Oh and the Hipstamatic app acts somewhat like an in-phone polaroid camera, as it takes the picture just a little while to develop.)

Diptic

Diptic allows you "collage" pictures together into one square picture.  This app is extremely helpful when used in the editing stage before uploading pictures to Instagram.  The process of using this app is simple.  You pick your layout (how many pictures you want to put together and in what format).  Then you add pictures to the layout (in this step you have many options: you can take the pictures then, upload from your phone's library or from Facebook).  After this step you can tweak your layout--maybe one of your pictures needs more room, you can move the borders however you need them to go and you can also switch your pictures (rotate them or make them mirror images).  Then you can change the color of the border to any color you like, as well as changing the thickness of the border and if you want rounded edges (new feature that I love!).  After you finish all of these steps you are ready to export it!  You can send it to a numerous amount of places.  You can send it directly to Instagram or Facebook or you can just save it to your phone.  In my opinion this app is very worth the money spent.  I like some photo collages now and then.

This collage might be a little confusing, but there are 2 diptic pictures on each line.  Notice how you can change the border to as thick as you want or make it so thin it's nonexistent? You can also change the color--white, black, any color you want (any mix of primary colors you can come up with) and round the edges (top left photo).

Incredibooth

Incredibooth is your own personal photo booth!  I love this app, even though I need to use it more than I do.  From the makers of Hipstamatic, you have your choice a few different styles of what the final product will look like.  In my opinion this app is one that is much more fun with your friends than by yourself.  Just make sure to warn them that it takes 4 different pictures before the mini-photoshoot begins.  Otherwise you end up laughing too hard to take good pictures, from my experience.  If you're patient, diligent, and lucky you might be able to get this app for free.  I did, and since then they have had it on sale before at least one other time that I can remember.  (The notification came through my Hipstamatic app.) 

Free Apps:

Disposable 

Disposable is also from the creators of Hipstamatic (and Incredibooth). This app is supposed to mimic the disposable cameras we all had at one point (growing up or on trips).  You are unable to see the photos until after all of the photos have been taken on the "roll."  However, a really fun aspect of this app is your friends who have the app can be invited to participate in the roll. Whoever you invite and joins can take pictures from their phone and when the final product is completely developed they can see their photos and your photos on their phone.  How cool is that?  Also, these aren't just regular photographs, you can pick different cameras to play with and you can play up or down their effects (fx).  As of right now, my only friend who has an iPhone and this app is my Mom, but when go on trips it is a lot of fun to contribute to group albums! (And the pictures get stored directly to your phone for safe keeping).

There are three different free cameras you can choose from, I obviously have a favorite.

Squaready

Squaready is another app that is very helpful in the editing process before a photo goes to Instagram.  All Instagram photographs have to be square, no exceptions.  So if you have something that you want to put on Instagram, say a photobooth strip, you first load it into Squaready, choose a background color and save however you want to (whether that's to your camera roll or just in the Instagram format).  To be honest, I haven't used this very much, but I do have a couple of times on Instagram where I really did need Squaready.  Also, even if you don't want to put your photobooth strips on Instagram, if your photograph is just better being in its original format, keep it that way, and here's how.

This is actually my favorite picture from my goofing off Incredibooth "photo shoot" (I had to test them all out!)

PictureShow

PictureShow, to be honest is something I don't use that much either, but it is one of my favorite free editing apps.  You can take any photograph and turn it into something special through this app.  However, in my opinion there are just so many choices it is a bit overwhelming which just means that I spend most of my time hitting the "shake" button to mix every option up.  If I like it I keep it, if I don't then I hit the button again.  I use this app for those photographs that I know I want to put on the background of my phone because I get beautiful effects without losing the height of my photograph (basically it doesn't have to make the photograph square).  Also this time last year, I some fun experimenting with the camera effects, as you can see in the photographs below.

Here's a before and after for PictureShow.  I know it's not the same photo, but it basically has the same original lighting (it was in the same series that I took).

These photos are from the in-app cameras.. You can choose the different cameras with 2-4 lenses.  It's quite fun to play around with when bored.

Instagram

I didn't feel right not mentioning Instagram again.  Instagram is an amazing free camera app.  You get to choose from numerous amount of filters (the best choice of filters out there in apps as far as I can tell) and a tilt shift like blur.  These two things can change your photographs and push them to a new level.  Also there is a new feature called Lux, this feature brings out details and can help underexposed pictures.  If you click on the link, it explains how you can apply this new feature (sorry, not sure what else to call it since it's not a filter).  As far as I can tell sometimes Lux really does enhance a photography beautifully but sometimes not so much.  In case you can't tell, I love this app.  I use it pretty much everyday to share pictures on Facebook and Twitter.  If I'm not using it to upload my own pictures I'm oohing and ahhing over everyone else's pictures on my feed. (I will openly admit I follow at least 4 dogs. Yes I know their owners are the ones doing the uploading, but I just want to see the puppies!)  

Before and After Instagram images.  The bottom 2 photographs also have the Lux feature applied to them.

Instagram

My mom always teases me about my sense of trends (for lack of a better word).  When we're out shopping I'll picking an article of clothing that she isn't very fond of (which means I usually end up putting it back) and then a few months (sometimes a year) later it will be the latest fashion trend.  Or I'll get really excited about a certain app on my iPhone or get a new haircut (I'm always the girl who is the first to try a fashion trend... like ombre hair).  With fashion my motto is to wear what you love and what looks good on you, the trends are so cyclical that you'll eventually be "in" again.  But knowing and feeling like you look good is always chic.  


Mostly though I want to talk about social media.  I am, of course, addicted to Facebook like everyone else.  I'm not embarrassed to say that it is my home screen when I open up a new page in Safari.  I have fallen in love with timeline, which I was not a fan of to begin with, but it grew on me.  Except for the fact that most of my 2011 is missing from my timeline, which I am not okay with, but I will survive.  Timeline is just more efficient than the old Facebook.  While I'm not 100% happy with the fact that messages are the same things as chats nowadays, I don't really want this whole blog to be about Facebook.


Twitter I joined during the middle days.   I wasn't the first group to jump on the bandwagon, but since then Twitter has exponentially grown into the mass social media outlet it is today.  I'm not sure I like it anymore.  A person has to be constantly tapped into to Twitter to not be overwhelmed by the sheer number of tweets one has in their feed after a few hours of not checking it (okay make that more like a day).  But in 1 day I bet I would have almost at least 300 tweets to read, at least!  That's just an overload to my system.  After about 100, I just stop caring and start skimming... usually missing a very important tweet from people I actually know.  I used to love Twitter because I was able to say things on there that I usually would deem inappropriate for Facebook.  But maybe it is time to throw in the Twitter towel?


Last summer I blogged about (in one of the few blogs that wasn't just a picture) Pinterest.  Pinterest has grown and flourished so much since then.  I think almost everyone has heard of it by now.  Businesses are using it to help sell their products, mothers are using it to help them stay organized, people my age are using it to help them plan their dream weddings (even if they aren't engaged, I'm even guilty of this one).  Basically the average person is using it to help them become a superhuman DIYer, decorator, baker, photographer, and everything else creative all in one.  If I could actually do all of things I have pinned, I would feel pretty accomplished.  


What I really started this post to blog about though was Instagram.  If you have an iPhone and you don't have this app, you should really think about downloading it.  If you don't have an iPhone and just want to see what it's all about check out Instagram's blog.  There are also websites that allow you to sign-in via Instagram but you have to have an account first, so it wouldn't be too helpful if you don't have an iPhone.  Instagram is (according to wikipedia) a free photo sharing application that allows users to take a photo, apply a ditigal filter (and blur!), then share it on a variety of social networking services including (Facebook and Twitter and) Instagram's own.  You can get a list of all your friends (from Twitter and Facebook) that use Instagram and follow them on a Feed that shows you their latest uploaded pictures.  I even follow some people (a lot) of people who I don't even know.   It is a whole community where you can comment and share photographs.  As a photographer, I think it's a pretty awesome resource.  Some people put on contests or you can just have your own hashtag (#) series.  I have a series going that is all about my dog (I think I might love him).  While I was on Christmas vacation, my brother-in-law's little nephew had his own hashtag series going.  I think it's almost more fun for me the photographer to come up with cleverish captions as it is taking the picture.  You can also search hashtags, which I think is pretty awesome.  Some of my pictures below relates to my sorority.  I searched using the Kappa Kappa Gamma hashtag and I could see what other Kappas were doing across the nation.  Amazing how small the world can become through awesome things such as this, huh?


I thought I'd let you see a few pictures just so you can see how awesome Instagram can be.