Photography apps - for your blog and social media

I've been playing around with photography        
for many years now. I've worked professionally as a photo-journalist and taken thousands of pictures of our family adventures - usually with a point-n-shoot.

I was thrilled when my father got himself a brand new DSLR because it meant I had a decent chance of wrangling his older one away from him. My plan worked - and a whole new world opened up to me!

The new (to me) camera gave me the opportunity to play with features I'd not had access to before - to see things in nature from a fresh perspective - usually quite close up and in focus. It's a treasure for a photo shoot  or when I have the opportunity to capture special events, wildlife, or nature.

These days, on a day to day basis, it's often more convenient to tote along the lightweight iphone. It fits in a pocket, is easy to use, and takes decent pictures. With apps such as Instagram, I can immediately post to twitter, facebook, tumbler, and flickr to share via social media while we go about the course of our homeschool day or enjoy family time. I always send them to flickr where I can grab them and use picmonkey to turn them into blog buttons or make collages.

As a homeschool blogger, it's become quite the handy tool. As I'm sitting on the beach atop a mound of pretty sea shells I can snap a picture . . . .

Add an appropriate message or tweet  . . . . 

"Sitting on a mound of shells in #SWFL thinking about how much fun we'll have at 

BEECH Retreat in January!   #BEECHrt #hsbloggers " 

And out it goes from Instagram to all the usual suspects!

I'm happy to share with you a few of the recent fun FREE phone apps I've been playing with. There are many different camera phone apps out there. I can't tell you which ones are the very best, but I can tell you that if it is remotely complicated - I give up. These I've been able to figure out fairly easily and found them to be worth the effort. They produce some artsy, professional looking photo's using textures and filters.
(the apps are free at this time - I have NO idea how long that will last - but keep your eye out for them)

Camera Awesome -Smug Mug -

                       turned this photo                                                       into this photo



Filtermania 2 - turned the same original photo into

                         this photo:                                                              and this one: 

                          as well as this:                                                      and also this: 

InstaEffect - gave this sea oat pic 4 different looks in a short easy couple of click-n-saves


                           like this one:                                                            this one: 
  


                                this:                                                                   and even this: 
 

                   I started with this:                                                          

There are some built in apps with which you can use to add text. 

Text4Instagram - 

The best way to learn how to use these fun free apps to use for your blog and social media - is to jump right in a play for awhile. These are my first round of experiments. I'm enjoying playing with the various textures, the lighting and color shades - planning to get better with the text. 

Most important tips of the day - take lots of pictures - pay attention to detail as you look through the lens/phone. Enjoy the art of photography and your passion will show - but don't loose sight of that moment with your family. Photography can enhance your family memories as long as you don't get too hung up on trying to get absolutely perfect pictures (I've done it both ways) this is better. Live in the moment!