This post is supposed to be about my most recent article for Odyssey magazine: Say it with Photos: Fun with Photos on Facebook, Instagram, and Beyond. And I’ll talk about that, I promise!
But first, the most exciting part of getting my January 2013 issue of Odyssey in the mail was page 25, where my new puppy Maya stars as the example dog in a photo book contest Odyssey is running this month.
Here she is, smiling for the camera!
Speaking of cameras, my article was all about how social media and camera phones are changing photography. I joined Instagram while working on the article, and I’ve posted quite a few puppy pictures there.
The trickiest part of the article for me was staying mindful of the fact that the kids who are going to be reading it have most likely never seen a film camera, and may not even know that you used to have to wait to see a picture after you hit the shutter. It was tempting to start with how much things have changed since film, but instead I started with how we use camera phones now, then explained how things used to be.
Since I was talking about posting photos on social media, I also made sure to include a sidebar about being safe online. So many kids don’t really have a concept of how public all online activity really is.
Social media and apps seem to be a niche for me. This is my third article for Odyssey about the topic! The first time it was the 3D sun app (which still alerts me about solar storms), then social media and politics.
To go along with this social photography article, I asked my little cousins to help me pick out “10 cool photo apps” for kids to try. Of course, I had to try them all myself, too. That was a fun project — I followed my puppy around snapping pictures and trying out all the silly filters, colors, and other modifications.
And… because I can’t resist… here’s one more photo of my famous dog!
