When John Saddington announced Pressgram a few years back, I was using an Android phone and was completely envious. It sounded like a great idea, to own your own content and publish it to your WordPress site. Especially with the changes in Instagram and the worries about privacy, it seemed like a good idea at the right time. In the end, things didn’t work out and Pressgram went away, but I suspect many people still want an easy way to publish images to their WordPress blog. So I made a workflow in workflow app to replace Pressgram which I’m going to share and let you customize.
Why Taking Pictures Makes You Happier
I recently read there are restaurants that have started forbidding their customers to take pictures of the food. One argument I heard was that it took too long, thus letting the food get cold and creating a sub-optimal experience. Another argument was that the customers would be focused more on the picture (and the social media they would post it on) than on the experience of eating. A third reason – and one we can all empathize with – was that some restaurants don’t want patrons to take out their phones in the first place, since it makes for a lousy social environment.
All valid arguments to some degree. And yet. There’s something about taking a picture of a special moment, whether it’s food or something else we’re enjoying, that makes it feel deeper, better. I know there are less lofty reasons for posting pictures on social media (making others jealous for instance, or sheer bragging), but let’s put these aside for a second.
If your motives are pure, what’s wrong with taking a picture?
7 Sites to Help You Create Amazing Images
The online world is filled with visuals, whether those visuals are image or video, we cannot scroll through social media without seeing more image than text. You don’t have to have a degree in graphic design to create amazing images for your church or organization. Here are 7 sites that can help you create scroll stopping images.
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Use A Balloon to Improve Your Pop Up Flash [Video]
One of the tips I learnt early on in photography, is that using your cameras small flash often causes a really bad effect on your photos. This is due to the basic rules of light which state that a small far away light source creates a “harsh” light and a large, close light source creates a beautiful soft light. While it is not an absolute rule that you should never use your built in flash (or pop up flash), it won’t help you to create beautiful soft portrait light.
However, in this video you’ll see an incredibly simple way to improve your light from a popup flash with a very simple and cheap piece of equipment.
A balloon.
Have a look:
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How to Set Up a Photo Booth for a Church Service
Last Saturday (the 11th of December 2016 in case you’re reading in the future) our church had it’s Christmas service. I know this might seem strange as it is so far before Christmas, but as we are an international church in a University town, many of our congregation go home from their studies early and aren’t around closer to Christmas. As such, the 11th it was.
As we were coming up with ideas for what we could do in our church service, we listed the usual ideas.
- Christmas songs
- Gospel presentation
- cakes from around the world (turns out, Malaysia has a green cake)
- and some games
During our brainstorming, I thought about those photo booths at events that are becoming more and more popular. I knew it could be great fun, help create a memory that lasted a bit longer, and potentially lead to people entering more conversations and showing their fun with other people. Especially as I had heard good reports from people in the US over times they had used them at Easter. I knew I’d need to grab a piece of new camera kit to run this, but I had 90% of what I needed. So here is what I used, how I set it up and how you can set up your own too.
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How to Have Portrait Mode without an iPhone 7 Plus
Although the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus boast a few great new features, the standout feature is the new portrait mode which creates depth maps using the two cameras and then blurring the background to create something which looks like it was taken with a very expensive camera.
If, like me, you don’t have several hundred dollars to spend on a new phone (and you prefer a smaller phone) then there maybe a partial solution for you with Patch, a new iOS app.
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