#bo2011, Instagram and @anglo

The amazing 'Best 2011 of Grids' posted on Instagram under the hashtag #bo2011 (1500 to date) started with our very own @Anglo. Here's her first grid, posted on December 28th, and how the meme took off in her own words: 

Click to enlarge and open a slide show of images on this blog

I was hoping for five or maybe 10 people to join in.

I made up the tag #bestofAnglo2011, wandered back through my stream and tagged my favourite shots with it. I stopped tagging when I had made an IG-friendly square of images. Turns out that you need 16 shots to do make a square, 4x4, who'd have thought? I shared the grid and invited people to explore my personal 'best of' tag, like wrapping paper the blur was designed to add an element of surprise when people clicked the tag to see my 16 images in their own mini stream. 

An End of Year Review is an obvious thing to do, but I also did this because I had a few images from early on in the year that I was really proud of and wanted to parade again. Equally, I knew I had missed lots of other people's best shots from the year (because I just can't be on IG that much), so I threw out the invite for others to make a grid. I did not include instructions, thinking it was obvious how to make the grid (I really got that wrong!)."

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Then ForwardTumble suggested using #bo2011 for the grid shots only, so they could be browsed all in one place. Go Tumble! 

Then a few friends, with much more influence than me, did one:

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And things started to pick up speed. When it got to about 50 grids, I lobbed some proper instructions into the #bo2011 tag, because many people were asking 'what app did you use' (you don't need an app!),  because some people were putting individual shots in with the grids (grrrr) and because the part ForwardTumble and I had played in creating the meme was getting lost in the stampede. 

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And in a few days a little idea I expected to be taken up by me and a handful of followers went from 50 grids by the end of day one, to 750 by the start of New Year's Eve to 1400 by the end of New Year's Day. 

So a huge thank you to everyone for doing it! I started off liking every image but there are now too many to do that, but in my heart I have. 

The #Bo2011 tag is the ultimate box of chocolates. It's the best of the best of Instagram. It shows just how stunning iPhone photography can be. It's also demonstrates the huge difference in creativity that people can achieve with the same tool. I've seen girds full of bright coloured skies, macro insects, soft sepia Earlybirds, hard black and white architecture, the same puppy getting bigger and just balloons. It's a fascinating gallery I'll keep coming back to.  

You can browse the tag here: #bo2011

Here are some screen shots of the many, many grids out there. I'm sure you'll agree they look glorious all together. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

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big bright wheel

Original image taken on iPhone 4

Photograph by @Londonbird, taken at the Winter Wonderland 2011, Hyde Park 

"First 'Clarity' in Camera+ then Dynamic Light app, added a little 'dynamic light' not the full amount as it tends to go weird, then added Kelvin filter in Instagram."

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bubblegum

"Bubblegum" taken by @Anglo on her iPhone 3GS

"Firstly I noticed how good she'd got at blowing bubbles so thought it was time to 'capture the moment'. I asked her to stand by a brightly lit window, and turn so the sun hit the side of her face. I only just managed to catch the bubble before it burst. I edited completely in Camera+, cropping closer and to a square, adding the vibrant filter to juice everything up, they using a vignette border to get rid of all evidence of the room. Really pleased with the light in the bubble."

Original photograph

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merry go round

Original iPhone 4 image

Photograph by @Londonbird, taken at the Winter Wonderland 2011, Hyde Park 

"I resisted using colour (only just!) and took Paris photographers like Cartier Bresson as inspiration. I used Camera+ to add 'clarity' to bring out detail in faces, then to Noir to add black and white glow and Lomo-Fi filter in IG to add the border."

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@Londonbird, the Huffington Post and Annie Leibowitz!

Bloody hell! One of our featured Instagramers @Londonbird has hit the big time, having three of her iPhone photographs featured in this article in The Huffington Post.

You can read the full article, and watch the slideshow, here

carnivale

original image

Shot at our local garden centre

I asked her to look at the ceiling lights

We did not buy the mask

Edited with Camera+
Flash > to brighten the face
Vibrancy > to make it even more PURPLE!
Crop and Vignette > to get rid of the garden centre

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end of days

iPhone photograph by my sister Louise. The building is The Shard, London.

You can find Louise on Instagram as Londonbird.

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two minute silence

Original Image

How I edited this iPhone photograph

Camera +

Crop closely to the crowd. Put the old fashioned lampposts at the centre of the picture.

In Scenes, select Clarity to define each head clearly.

Noir

I want to get rid of the overbearing Burton shop sign, so I use the Noir highlight to make an arch over all the image apart from the top corners, which I darken using the maximum vignette setting. This also makes the lampposts distinct as black silhouettes. 

Instagram

Here I used the Earlybird filter to give the shot a vintage, sepia look. And I like Earlybird!

People have commented that this looks like a shot from the olden days, perhaps even from the first Two Minute Silence in 1919. A happy accident, I must confess!

About the ceremony: At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the Two Minute Silence is observed on Armistice Day, the day which marks the end of the First World War. More on this ceremony at the British Legion's website

 http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/the-nation-remembers/two-minute-silence

Two new photographs posted each week, 

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three amigos

How I edited this iPhone photograph

Camera+

In Scenes selected Portrait to brighten the face against the black background

Used the XPRO C-41 filter for contrast and bright colours

Cropped using the 'Golden' preset

Photo FX

In Lens fx > Vignette > added the black square vignette

In Special Effects > Colour Looks > added the Glamour filter to soften the light and brighten the colours 

Two new photographs posted each week, 


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conkers and dappled shade

Sometimes you don't need a filter, just some dappled shade

Here's how I took this iPhone photograph

Obviously, I held the conker about 5 inches from the iPhone, about as close it can focus without a special macro lens. 

Cunningly, I placed my hand in a natural spot of light coming through the horse-chestnut canopy, so that the hand and conker looked spotlit against the darker background. I was careful to get some light visible through the spikes to make them extra spiky. I also waited so my daughter was in the right place in the background, collecting more conkers for a bit of story telling.

I tapped the phone screen on the image of the conker (not easy as you're holding and tapping with one hand) This told the iphone where to focus and what light to expose for (I think this is only possible with later iPhones, sorry!)

Snap. No filters. No Apps. 

Two new photographs posted each week

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grab a seat

My Sepia Victorian Park Bench - shot on iPhone 3GS

The original shot

Here's how I edited this iPhone photograph

Dynamic Light

I applied both the Orton and the Overcooked HDR filter to the image so see which I liked best. I preferred the Orton effect of soft focus light over the HDR, with all its hard detail. 

Noir

Set to Sepia, I placed a pool of light beneath the bench to lead the eye into the picture, then set all the dials to 100% so the image was incredibly bright. Gradually, I dropped the dials down to reveal just enough detail in the shot whilst keeping brightness very much the overall theme.

Two new photographs posted each week

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barn owl meets iphone

Barn Owl 'Willow' photographed at a falconry display

Original image

Here's how I edited this iPhone photograph

Camera +

Get rid of those bloody tourists with a close, square crop to just the owl and the tree

Add Scenes > Auto to lighten it just a little

Use FX Effects > Vibrant to make the red berries stand out in the tree

Use Borders > Simple >Vignette to make the tree more of a circle pattern behind the owl, a little evocative of the moon, this bird's usual companion.

Instagram

Tilf Shift (circle) round the owl so it really stands out from the background

Two new photographs posted each week

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viola practice

Taken on an iPhone 3G S

This time there was only low artificial light, making the shot quite noisy, but I like the fact her hand is blurred where she's moving the bow.

Edited with the following iPhone apps:

Camera+ cropping to square then Scenes filter > Portrait, for smoothness and brightness.

Noir, set to Sepia, with the highlight circle stretched to brighten her face and the line of the strings.

Dynamic Light > Orton filter, for a very soft focus

raw image

.

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the gerbil whisperer

Taken on an iPhone 3G S

Using available light from a window at the side

Edited with the following iPhone apps

Camera+ cropping to square, plus Redscale filter to warm up the skin tones

Instagram Tilt Shift (circle) zoomed out to encompass the gerbil and hand, putting the child further into the background

Raw image

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chocolate milkshake trance

Taken on an iPhone 3G S. 

Edited with the following iPhone apps

Camera + Clarity filter

Noir -  all dials set to 100%

Instagram - Tilt Shift, to place only the eyes in focus

Instagram - Earlybird filter for the lovely soft sepia and curved frame 

Raw image

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sherwood forest

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with the Camera + and Dynamic Light Apps

Raw image

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centre of attention

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with Camera + and Instagram Tilt Shift

raw image

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death of a sandcastle

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with Camera + and Instagram apps

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baby falcons in the cloister

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with Dynamic light apps

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The easy way to promote a charity in your blog sidebar

3D image by Ash @ Push Creativity

The fact that companies are asking bloggers to promote stuff tells me space on this blog is valuable. Space on your blog is valuable, extremely so if you've got heaps of readers. So why not use some of that space to big-up charities that mean a lot to you? Here's what I did. It's quick, completely painless and the result looks damn fine in your sidebar. 

I toyed with the idea of a little pic of the charity's logo in my sidebar, which I could set up to link through to their website, adding a bit of text to say why this charity mattered.  Worthy but dull, I concluded.

Then I remembered the clever, and rather sexy looking, Twitter widgets which bloggers use to have their latest Tweets scrolling their blogs. And I also remembered you did not have to put your own username into these widgets. It could be about someone else.

This is quite a leap for a Twitter user.

So I could put a widget on my blog and set it up with my favourite charity's username. A slick, animated advert for the charity, constantly broadcasting their latest news to my modest readership. Job done. Well, almost.

Of course I had to decide which charities to promote on my blogs. Not an easy task.


On this blog I share my iPhone photography; snapshots of my blessed life. It seems only right to promote Amnesty International here, who stand-up for people across the world who are far from blessed. You can see their widget in action on the right.

On my vintage blog, the obvious choice was Oxfam Fashion, with tweets all about their gorgeous vintage fashion collection.

But in blogging terms I'm small fry. A drop in the ocean. So if you're reading this and you have a blog, especially if you have a blog that get lots of hits each day, what are you waiting for? Get your widget out.

Please come back and tell me what you did, with a comment, or via Twitter. I  genuinely want to know about your blog and what charity you gave some space too. Thank you.

I'll just dash off now to polish my halo.

If you don't know how... 

Twitter's own widgets are available on the Twitter site. They are compatible with any website (including Blogger) and most social networks, just follow this link: http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets.

You don't have to be on Twitter yourself to put a widget on your blog for a charity, you just need to find a charity on Twitter you want to support. A good place to start is http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/3267-list-of-uk-charities-on-twitter.

If you're in Wordpress you probably already know about the in-built Twitter widget which you can set-up with your favourite charity's username.

You can find me on Twitter @Angpang

beauty on an industrial scale

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with Camera + and Instagram apps

A new photograph every Tuesday and Thursday.

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busted!

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with the Instagram apps

A new photograph every Tuesday and Thursday.

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can we get one?

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with the Instagram apps

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three little lambs

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with the Camera+  and Instagram apps

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eyes of a child

Taken on iPhone 3G S, edited with the Camera+ and Colorsplash apps

A new photograph every Tuesday and Thursday.

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