Are you on Instagram? You should be. And you should follow me (“helenasweet”).
Why? Well, I’ve become mad crazy for the various apps you can download for the camera on your phone. My pictures used to merely show that my favorite coworker likes to sit in my lap while I research sales tax and other such funnery:
Now! Now I have apps like Photo Grid and make collages of the cats!
Photo Grid, as you’d expect, lets you make grids from existing photos in any of your phone galleries. The free app has preset “grids,” but there are enough to serve most purposes. Grids are generally rectangles that don’t mesh perfectly with Instagram, but if you aren’t an obsessive Instagrammer (like yours truly) this likely doesn’t matter.
I also love Retro Camera. The free app has six “cameras” to help you create vignettes, photo scratches, and fun with sunlight. Each camera has an info sheet telling you about its effects (scratching/color) and best uses (indoor/outdoor/still life). I love the Fudge Can, which let me create this lovely cloud-beam over an Iowan farm:
The app is simple and easy-to-use. The pictures you take will be stored in a special gallery within your phone’s gallery application. You can then upload them to Instagram to share with the world, or keep them for yourself.
My favorite app, at present, is Pudding Camera. The free app contains nine cameras (including three that include timers to let you do multiple images on one photo) and eight films (e.g., vintage blue, basic, vivid) so you can personalize your pictures. All photos save to your gallery application.
The fantastic chickens above were taken with the Fantasy camera, Vintage Brown film. I made Will drive slowly as we left his uncle’s farm this past weekend so I could capture these buggers. Chickens are oddly beautiful, but I digress.
Pudding Camera also integrates well into Instagram. You can either upload photos to Instagram from the Pudding Camera gallery or access the Pudding Camera app directly through Instagram (it shows up as an option when you select “camera” – allowing you to use the app or your phone’s normal camera).
Helena + Camera Apps is a new relationship, so I’m sure there are more out there that I’ve yet to try (or more features within the ones I have!). Follow along, friends, and I’ll let you know when I come across something else that is too awesome to pass by.