Filters, Phones and Photography Made Easy

If you haven’t noticed, BatesMeron recently joined Instagram, which is an online photo and video sharing service. (Feel free to keep up with us by following @batesmeron.) You can access Instagram online from your computer’s web browser or through your smartphone as a mobile app. Using it as a mobile app is particularly fun because it is a great way to visually share what’s going on in your life and stay in tune with the lives of friends, celebrities and brands. This pastime is made possible by the amazing camera held within smartphones as well as the awesome photo editing apps that can make anyone look like a professional photographer.

I use an iPhone 5 (previously the 4), and I am always blown away by the quality of photos that I am able to take. While I have some photography experience, it really is the work of my phone and the following apps that take my photos to the next level.

VSCO Cam

This is an incredible app that allows you to take photos and edit them (or edit photos you took outside the app) to your heart’s content. Photo editing options like brightness, temperature, contrast, fade, vignette, tint, saturation, shadows, highlights, sharpness and grain help to get some amazing results. Here is a photo where I used VSCO Cam exclusively.

Squaready

If you upload a photo inside Instagram there is only one size photo you can use—and that makes me feel restricted. I like this free app because it allows you to shrink your photos and upload them to Instagram in rectangles and smaller squares with nice white borders. It has other options like editing the color of your background and flipping your photo, but I just use it for the borders. (I like to use this app in addition to VSCO Cam.) Here are some examples:

ClassicToy

Another free app. This one is so much fun that you’ll be playing with it for hours! This app allows you to experiment with different ‘lenses,’ but also with some toy camera options. Some of the different lenses are fish eye, rapid shutter, double exposure and multiple lenses.

MarbleCam

This app is random and only allows you to do one thing with it—but I still enjoy using it!

I’m not the only Instagram photographer in our office. Here are some photos that BMSDers have taken with their own phones. Now, just try and tell me you aren’t impressed!

You don’t have to have Instagram to jazz up your photos! Sometimes I edit my pictures just for fun! Hopefully one (or all) of these apps have inspired you to get out there and take some photos, because like I said—you don’t need to be a professional to look like one.