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January 29, 2013

Flickr is growing again

Flickr on iOSThe Next Web:

On its earnings call today, Yahoo reported that its Flickr product has enjoyed a resurgence in the mobile space, with iOS usage spiking a full 25% in terms of uploads and photos viewed, measured on a daily basis, since the company revamped its app for Apple's mobile devices.

Not quite what the headline promised - which suggested that the app was resposible for a 25% growth of the site - but this is still interesting news. Flickr has had an app for years - but get the app right, and you can see genuine growth. Can they keep building on it? I hope so. Flickr's fine-grained privacy controls and robust searching are a far more interesting photo medium than Instagram. They just need to keep making it easier to use without losing the sophistication. 

November 22, 2012

The link between photography and curation

Natalie Lloyd:

Seeing through another’s eyes is one of the perennial wonders of photography. Between the frames of an image, we are invited to consider a constructed reality offered by the photographer; what they chose to include, exclude and deem worthy of record or consideration. For those very same reasons, the art of curation often shares the same point of interest: the chance to explore someone else’s vision.

Exactly

November 10, 2012

The professional photographer and his iPhone

Time  shot on an iPhone

Great interview with the photographer who shot a Time magazine cover with an iPhone and Hipstamatic:

I asked him if it was embarrassing as a pro to be carrying an iPhone when most of his colleagues are into Nikon and Canon gear. "People don't think twice about it," Lowy told me. "It's a fast little camera and I do like that on a tough assignment." At times though, he says, "pros will push me aside" assuming he is a tourist or amateur.

It's a nice counter to the gear fetishism that seems to be rampant at the moment - and maybe always has been. 

July 2, 2012

The sting in MobileMe's tail

MobileMe is closed
MobileMe, Apple's less than successful cloud offering, is gone. It passed into the night on Saturday, and is now formally succeeded by iCloud.

But it left a sting in its tail.

I had planned to put up a post this morning about lessons journalists could learn from The Onion, based on a talk at Le Web London. I went to grab my photos from Aperture - and this is what the application has been doing for the last two hours or so...

Aperture moving MobileMe
This process makes the rest of the app inaccessible. So, you'll see that post tomorrow at the current rate of progress...
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April 9, 2012

Slides slide away

Transparancy film
It's amazing what slowly fades away while you're busy doing other things. I went essentially fully digital for my photography from around 2004 onwards. About 18 months ago, I came across a cache of un-shot film, and have slowly been working my way though it when I remember and have the time. During our recent break in the Cotswolds, I made the decision to try and shoot the remainder of it.

I had a standard colour negative film, a roll of Kodak Elite Chrome Transparency film, and a roll of Tmax B&W. The latter's still in the camera, and the colour negatives are being developed locally. The slide film? I've had a devil of a time getting it done. One place I visited didn't understand the difference between E-6 and Kodachrome, and assured me that it could no longer be developed. Everywhere else said they could do it - but at a three to four week turnaround, as they had to send it overseas. 

So, I'll be posting it myself. No point in paying a local shop to post it for me. Anyone got any recommendations of good labs in the UK? 

Bonus link: What Slide Film Taught Me - spot on. And odd to think this will probably be my last ever roll of slide film. 

February 20, 2012

The iPhone: Photojournalism Disruptor

I'm a little bored of the infographic onslaught we've seen over the past year. But this one caught my eye:
Continue reading The iPhone: Photojournalism Disruptor.

September 16, 2011

#futureofmobile - Instagram's pivot

Kevin Systrom
I'm at the Future of Mobile Conference in London today. First up is Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, talking about how to get a lot of users fast...

Instagram has a user base about the size of London - there's a huge opportunity in reaching a worldwide audience with truly mainstream apps. 

Started off as Burbn - an HTML5 web app that was meant to be a location-based game. Checkins were a magian word for investors two years ago. But the product was confusing, undifferentiated and slow. People outside their circle of friends were confused by it (good test of your product).

YouTube started as a video dating site! They saw unexpected behaviours - people were passing around a range of video, not just dating proposals. The same thing happened with Burbn - people were using the photos aspect more and more. The founders were keen photographers, the apps for photos weren't great...

Still a tough decision to take what you've put work into and switch to something else. But they did. And they focused on problems users have with photo apps.For example - at the time most mobile photos still looked rubbish at the time (this was just before the iPhone 4). The filter-based apps were the most popular in the store at the time, so they looked at that idea as a solution. 

The second problem they wanted to solve was speed. This would be the key to succeeding in mobile. They decided they would only send the minimum size needed to display on the iPhone 4. The 640 x 640 ristriction was a core part of their success. Also, they used asynchronous technology in the background to make sure photos could be shared to multiple networks in one go without a noticeable user delay. 

At launch, they targeted a user group who were passionate about the problems they were solving. BUT inviting influencers doesn't guarantee anything. They have to love the product. 

Other key factors:
  • Early internationalisation
  • A small team, able to be nimble
  • Single platform from the beginning - no reason you need to be on two platforms from day one.
  • Minimum viable product at each step
  • Invested in community very early
Ubelly.com has blogged the session, too. 


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August 9, 2011

London Police using Flickr to identify rioters

London Police on flickr

Interesting. London's Metropolitan Police seems to be noting the willingness of the public to help identify rioters, and are posting CCTV grabs to their Flickr account.

[via Adam Coffer]

August 8, 2011

So far, so HDR

Playing with my iPhone over the weekend, I decided to shoot the same scene with three different High Dynamic Range methods. One is the iPhone 4's in-built HDR, and the other with HDR apps.

This is the iPhone default:

iPhone HDR

Quite naturalistic. Nice shot.

This is Pro HDR:

iPhone Pro HDR shot

More dramatic and vivid, I'd say. A little unreal for my tastes, though.

Lastly, TrueHDR:

TrueHDR iPhone photo

This is, I think, my favourite. It's more moody and dramatic, and the HDR is a little less obvious than in the previous pic.

Cameras that are also computers. So many possibilities.

April 19, 2011

Photosynth on iPhone: panoramic reporting

photosynth app
I have a new app on my iPhone: Photosynth. Yes, a Microsoft app. Cognitive dissonance ahoy. ;-)

But it's a great tool, on that allows you to quickly and simply build rich panoramas of your environment. Hence, it's one I expect to see journalists using fairly quickly.

My collegue Stacey has been enthusiastic about Photosynth since she saw it demoed at the second news:rewired, and it crops up on her blog occasionally. You can see why. It's just such a boon for a property journalist...

However, I think it has far more application for journalists generally, as a way of getting a very vivid view of a scene or event onto the web. I looked at a fairly perfunctory video of a police raid in my neck of the woods the other morning. It would have been far more interesting as a panorama of this sort. 

Having this sort of technology right on the iPhone just makes it an even richer potential reporting tool. I did a quick test run of the app out the front of Quadrant House a few minutes ago:


Imagine that sort of thing for a demo, or a sporting event, or a disaster site.

Or, dare I say it, a royal wedding? 

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August 6, 2010

(Still) Criminalising Photographers

I finding it deeply worrying that the police are still doing this kind of thing:

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has hit out at the Metropolitan Police after photographer Carmen Valino said she was stopped from doing her job despite identifying herself as a journalist to police officers in Hackney on Saturday. Valino said she was photographing the crime scene from outside a police cordon. 'A police sergeant approached Valino telling her that she was disrupting a police investigation and to hand over her camera,' reported the London Photographers' Branch of the NUJ.
C'mon, Coalition, if you really believe in Big Society and civil liberties, turn this around. 
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May 13, 2010

Experimenting, with chair

Zi8 on a chair
Trying out a little project to boost internal knowledge sharing and communication. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

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