Jun

InstaCC Photo Challenges and Calendar View are Winners!

By now everyone has heard the news that Facebook has purchased Instagram for a cool billion dollars. While I have not heeded the call of the Facebook sirens (al a Homer’s Odyssey), I have slurped the cool sugary nectar that is Instagram. Okay, I am piling it on a bit thick, but that’s only because I am paid by the word (or not).

Back on topic. I do enjoy Instagram. Where else can you vicariously live the life of a complete stranger through a series of photos the size of a… Well, the size of a 1 and 7/8 inch square. Okay, you can’t really live their life, but you can look at photos of what they are having for dinner and see what the wing of the airplane they are on looks like out the window. Yes, we have ALL taken that picture.

So now that we have taken the picture of the wing of our plane or what we are having for dinner, what do we do with it? I have reviewed dozens of great apps for making your iPhone photos look even cooler than ever before. But InstaCC is a bit unique as it displays your photos in a camera view and prompts you to participate in photo challenges daily.

Here’s how it works. You log in with your Instagram username and password and allow InstaCC to have access to Instagram. You can post photos using the built in camera feature in the app. If you are working through a photo challenge, you will be given a choice whether to take a snapshot or to take a photo for the photo challenge. If you take the photo challenge your photo will be automatically hashtagged, which is important when you start to look at challenges.

The next menu to click is the one with a calendar and your name on it. This will show you a view of some of the photos you have posted. From this menu you may easily go to any photo. What’s more, you may also view your followers and those you follow from this screen. Click on a follower’s name and you can see their calendar view.

The challenges are a lot of fun. You currently have access to seven challenges ranging in duration from 3-14 days. This is an app that you will now want to put down.

Now pardon me while I go take a photo of my cat eating dinner on the wing of an airplane…

All the best… Mike

A college administrator by profession, Mike Kennamer enjoys the opportunity to take photos and improve his skills by shooting events at work, church, and for friends. He enjoys landscape photography, portraiture and is starting to dabble in HDR. His current photography project involves learning to control flash manually. “My goal”, according to Kennamer, “is to be the best photographer I can be.”

Kennamer is also the President of Kennamer Media Group, Inc., a provider of traditional and online media, specializing in the healthcare industry. On CurrentPhotographer.com he writes about iPhone and iPad applications for photographers.