You can’t experience culture by watching TV, or reading books, for that matter, on a different country. You can only experience it through living it yourself. The same approach one must take in order to understand and build a community for the startup — be it a mobile application, a marketplace, or anything in between.

When 500px started back in 2009, we treated community as a whole. It was an English-speaking white-male dominated community, just like the team itself was at the time. There were no cultural, linguistic, or any other differences — we would treat it as a single organism.

When our company hit an infliction point in early 2011, we noticed that it was separate clusters that were lighting up on the map—for example, one week it would be Germany, adding, perhaps, up to 15% to the overall userbase in just a week, or Indonesia, adding another 10% during a week after. This meant that for a few weeks most comments on the site were in German, Bahasa Indonesia, or, at a later point, in Chinese.

This is when it hit me: community we are building is not one thing. The community we have is actually made of nooks and clusters, that are combination of interests, languages, geographies. And while sometimes it might be intersecting between each other, it’s often not.

Your community can and will have other micro-communities within itself. Embrace that.

So if what you are building is relying on community as a core differentiator, you got to treat it as one. You have to go local: build connections on the ground, constantly be in contact with local leaders, and understand the dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

Being sensitive to the culture, and being respectful can help avoid some obvious and not-so-obvious mistakes. For example, earlier this year we have sent a survey to Chinese photographers using Google Docs. An obvious mistake to a Chinese national, since they won’t be even able to access Google while in China, but an often forgotten fact for someone who lives and breathes Google Docs here in Canada. Or the fact that we initially communicated with our Japanese photographers in English, despite the fact that just 1–2% of Japanese population speaks or understands English.

Being acutely aware of culture is only possible through a combination of three key ingredients:

1. Diversity in your company
2. Active daily contact with all major members of your community
3. Extensive travel and being open to living like a local

If you like the article, and don’t mind other people reading it too, please hit “heart” icon to recommend it to others.

How To Build A Passionate Community Around Your Startup was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This time, however, I wanted to turn the tables a little, and talk about what trends, I think, will be demanded by the clients for their advertising and campaigns throughout 2016.

At 500px, photographers can license their work at the most favourable conditions anywhere in the industry, and so the team constantly pushes out stories, and tutorials to help our members make more money and take their photography to the next level.

Here’s are the hottest trends in photography in 2016:

Aerials

We’ve seen drone sales soar to the new heights and better, smarter, and cheaper drones started to appear on the radar (two puns in one sentence, get it?). More photographers take aerial shots, be it from helicopters, airplanes, or with help of these new drones. But more importantly, buyers are also looking for breathtaking aerial views for their campaigns.

Roof tops (but please be safe)

This category was consistently picking up in interest since this photo literally blew up the internet, and we haven’t yet seen the peak of roof top craze. Buyers are looking for roof top photos, but generally tend to be on a safer side — so working your way towards safer and legal roof access might be a requisite to selling a shot. Just be safe.

Sun-filled negative space

This is something that counterintuitive to traditional photography but works perfect for both social media, allowing for a very airy look, and also very popular with buyers who get a lot of copy space to work with. This trend haven’t made it onto 500px in it’s fullest but definitely picked up a lot on Instagram.

Simple colours & muted colours

You probably noticed a new look on a lot of photos if you follow urban photographers — cold, muted, desaturated colours are a hit and picked up dramatically in popularity this year. Another trend is more simple colours — solid backgrounds, bright colours. All this makes the colour space of 2016 very stylish!

Low angles & unusual angles

Some new angles have emerged in urban photo community — low angles. Taking photos through reflections in puddles of rainwater, through the glass, and creating “fake” reflections is similar to a trend I observed 10 years ago — people taking photos through the reflection of their shiny metal iPods. In any case, these provides fresh perspective to a lot of traditional spots.

Epic camping & hiking locations

This will never grow old. But in 2015 we’ve seen the stakes at travel adventure photography hit a new high; photographers were experimenting with unusual boldness — unusual places, unique nature conditions, well placed people… I’m excited to see what 2016 brings here. It’s going to be tough!

Living through iPhones, and photos with iPhone

When the subject might be a little boring, I’ve noticed that it’s very easy to spicy up the scene and take a photo with the camera while iPhone’s camera is pointed at a scene, in a sense creating picture-in-picture. Some also use crystal balls, and, in general, I’d expect to see a lot more experimentation with different materials in 2016.

Top-down tables, food, coffees, parties

The feast is on! There has been a lot of great food photos in 2015, and this year we’ll see new aesthetic — better, more intricate lighting, more use of negative space, different degrees of preparedness (from ingredients to final dishes), and more interesting interactions — we’ve seen hands, but maybe we’ll see something new (cats, perhaps?).

A mix of techniques, as creators are looking to establish new ways to tell the story

And finally, it’s almost like a “catch all” category — I expect to see a lot of mixing and matching of styles, techniques, colouring and so on in creating new works. Mixing traditional views from one type of photography and applying it to another (long-exposure drone photography, or low angle food photography, anyone?)

Did I miss anything? Let me know in comments, email me evgeny@500px.com or message me on Twitter. And if you enjoyed the post, please click on the heart to recommend it to others.

The Photo Trends in 2016 You Definitely Don’t Want to Miss Out On was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

More than a year ago I wrote 6 Predictions About The Future Of Mobile Photography. From 6 items, I correctly predicted three:

1. Mirrorless cameras will get even smaller.

Back then I was suggesting that, based on recently released Canon G7X and similar cameras we will see a movement to smaller cameras with big sensor. And indeed, Fujifilm introduced X-T10 — a tiny powerful camera with huge APS-C sensor, and this year at CES Panasonic released ZS100, a compact camera with 1 inch sensor (which is 4 times larger than the sensor used in previous generation).

2. New software and hardware light field cameras

That’s a controversial one. While Lytro clearly failed on the consumer market (and reoriented itself first to commercial and industrial applications and later into VR), new company Light has emerged and promises to ship it’s Light L16 multi-lens camera in second half of 2016. Overall, light field is still a very intriguing technology, with lack of adoption in the consumer market.

3. Purpose-built cameras

We definitely started seeing cheaper GoPro alternatives, like Xiaomi Yi introduced in early 2015, which sells under $100. More surprisingly, the market saw introduction of 360° Ricoh Theta camera, and later at CES Nikon, surprisingly, announced KeyMission 360 — a “GoPro” that shoots 360 degree video in a compact package. This trend will definitely continue.

I was wrong about the other three items:

1. More affordable full frame cameras in the compact body design. That simply didn’t happen, and I now don’t think that’s a general trend that will continue. Most likely consumers in a market for a small camera will look for different formats — mirrorless cameras with APS-C or 4/3 sensor formats.
2. A truckload of Android-powered cameras. That didn’t happen and by now I lost confidence that Android will spread on compact cameras quickly.
3. Consumer tools will leapfrog in advances professional tools. I’m still confident that this will happen, but while 2015 brought a lot of progress in photo-processing tools on mobile platforms, it’s still not there yet.

So what’s going to happen in for 2016 in photo and video market? Here’s my set of predictions for 2016:

1. Explosion in 360° cameras and drive towards more consumer-friendly pricing

We are in the beginning of a trend, and I expect most major players to introduce their own 360 cameras — GoPro, Sony, and a whole bunch of Kickstarter campaigns and startups to get active in this space. Prices will fall and the winners will be those who provide end-to-end experience between hardware and software.

2. No major traction in full-frame cameras, but huge improvements in mirrorless technology

Mirrorless technology saw huge improvements in 2015 and most people I knew who were shooting full-frame DSLR’s are now fully in mirrorless camp. I expect major improvements in mirrorless sensor technology: higher pixel count, better ISO, faster autofocus, and so on. Mirrorless won’t quite catch up to what Nikon D5 is offering, but it will be more than enough for most consumers.

3. Great strides in lens technology, so that we’ll see lenses we never thought are possible

Something that no one thought was possible, Sigma made lots of headlines with their impressive lend line up, including revolutionary Sigma 24–35 f/2 zoom lens. Another impossible lens was Canon 11–24mm f/4 L. As costs of optics computation falls (along with expiring patents on classic lens designs), more innovative zooms will emerge — few are talking about 50–85 f/2, or longer zooms, like we saw on Olympus: 14–28mm f/2.8, 24–80mm f/2.8 extended beyond the traditional range by a few millimetres, adding usable range to its cameras.

4. Multi-lens camera in major smartphone (Samsung, Google, or Apple)

In 2015 Apple acquired company called LinX that was specializing on multi-lens setup for smartphones. This is similar to Light camera, and I expect Google might put a technology similar to Project Tango out in this world as well. Samsung is also rumoured to explore this space. Multi-lens setup can help improve the image quality, especially in the dark, and help add optical zoom to smartphones.

5. Emergence of a new major photo-sharing network (I hope it’s 500px)

A lot of people are getting tired from Instagram, arguably the number 1 photo-social network today. In my own feed, what I see can be described as “ad, promotion, ad, ad, ad, promotion, spam, ad, promotion”. Instagram’s growth came both as a blessing and a curse. Anyone who breaks the 10K follower ceiling can now promote products and services, probably for the first time making money on their art. This, however, means that almost anyone interesting (read: popular) in your feed will be advertising something. I see two options — one, networks that are more honest and upfront as to how one can make money have a chance to emerge, and two, apps that offer honest unfiltered expression—so Snapchat or Peach (chances are that nobody will remember what Peach is by year-end) have a chance to emerge.

What I left out from this list of predictions:

• Drones. Drones will become smarter, and most consumer will play with one, but with active flight restrictions baked in the software it would be more safe and less fun.
• Virtual Reality. A lot of interest in VR will fuel consumer enthusiasm about the technology, but it won’t make in into mainstream in this year. However, I’d expect to see at least one major movie released for VR.
• Chinese clones. An onslaught of Chinese companies will mean lots of variety of lower quality but novelty photo and video products that will be born and be dead within the same year.

Like what you read? Click the heart below and help spread it around. Let’s see what I get right in a year from now.

Photography in 2016: A set of predictions for this year. was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are hundreds of articles of photographers switching from Canon to Nikon, or from DSLR to mirrorless or from mirrorless to a smartphone. This is not one of them. While I did switch to a new system, I did so of the purpose of achieving my goal of travelling light.

My last trip to Russia-Germany-Iceland I packed a combined 60 Kg of stuff — promo swag, things for the family, and also photo-equipment. In total, I was hauling around a 20kg photo bag, and another 7kg photo bag with a drone.

Carrying around Nikon D810, a bunch of lenses, adaptors, battery packs, big RRS tripod, DJI Phantom drone is not something anyone can honestly enjoy, so when I got home, I reevaluated what I needed for my travel.

As the result, I put together this lightweight set:

• Fujifilm X-T1
• Fujinon 10–24mm f/4 (16–38mm equivalent)
• Fujinon 23mm f/1.4 (35 mm equivalent)
• Fujinon 56mm f/1.2 (85mm equivalent)
• Gitzo 2542 tripod w/ Acratech GP-s
• Small set of LEE filters 0.6 grad, 10 stopper & step-up rings

There are a few similar mirrorless systems on the market, but I choose Fujifilm for two practical purposes — organically, a lot of our team has bought or switched to Fujifilm, so there’s a chance to share lenses or accessories, and as Fujifilm is a title sponsor of the global photowalk, I got myself a loaner for a month, which I plan to replace with my hard-earned set when the loaner is due for a return.

Basically, I looked into what I usually shoot, and discovered that most of my landscape photos are wide-angle. Anything that I shoot in the city is around 35mm and most portraits are obviously in 70–135mm range, so 85mm is a sweet spot.

Now, for my last two trips, 4 and 12 days, everything I have is in a carry-on, as opposed to multiple bags, where tripod alone was so massive, it only fit in a big check-in luggage.

Travelling with such a kit makes me way more mobile. I feel less lazy carrying around a lighter, but still sturdy tripod with me, and I feel that having a camera that doesn’t hurt my back or neck is a good camera.

Rediscovering The Joy of Travel was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The world is now truly mobile. Maybe you don’t notice it as much when you are commuting between your work and home computer, but at times when I’m on the road, it’s more noticeable than ever. If I want to share a photo, it’s easier to pull out an iPhone, edit it on the go and publish it to myriad of social networks.

When I want a higher resolution photo, then I can easily pull frames from DJI Phantom, or from Olympus or Fuji mirrorless cameras and have on my phone in seconds. At first all these technologies were cumbersome, but they are getting better and more effortless than ever.

So what’s the modern mobile workflow? I have tried and used almost every single photo-sharing or editing app that is out there — and I have more than a few screens of apps on my phone. However, there are few essential apps that I keep returning to weekly: 500px, Snapchat, Snapseed, VSCO, Tinder (bear with me for a moment), and Facebook.

First, our own 500px app. I’ve been using pre-release version for weeks(it has hit the app store recently, so go get it), and it’s easier to use and more elegant than the last one. My main interactions are commenting on photos of the people I follow, and the number of taps dropped from 3 to 1 in the new version. The other big change is the home feed, which is a mix of Flow and Following feeds, which we now combine into one, so now you get to see more photos from people you follow with occasional recommendations for other photographers. It’s essential for travel too — when I’m on the go, I use search to explore composition and angles of the places I’m about to visit.

Snapchat. It’s the been said that Snapchat is the app for teens, but I found that I like the impulsive nature of photo or video taking. Photographers can be strict with themselves and won’t share some ugly shots, so Snapchat helps me be free and open my mind. I sometimes browse other people’s stories, but main activity is silly photo taking to share with a select few. A few photographers have started using Snapchat as a way to connect with their audiences and offer retouching tips or behind-the-scenes footage of their shoots.

Snapseed is the king of advanced photo-editing. While both 500px and VSCO have robust editing tools, if you want to tweak your photo with pro tools, Snapseed is essential to your workflow. It sharpens, crops and adds contract beautifully, so I use it for my most “serious” mobile or DSLR shots transferred onto the phone. While on the road, I might use Snapseed to edit my DSLR or mirrorless photos, without transferring them to a laptop at all.

VSCO is obviously the default film-simulation app. I’m not active as a grid member, but I love the film look and cross-processing style that it gives. I rarely use it on my DSLR photos, but it’s one of the essential steps for me to edit my mobile photos. I found that I tend to over-process photos a bit and keep them mostly cold (most people tend to love warm tones), so I still need to pace myself a little while using the app.

You are probably wondering what Tinder has to do with mobile photo workflow. If you do, here’s the answer. First, Tinder has “Moments”, so you can share your selfies or what you are doing with others. I use it for recruiting, sending out targeted messages to cast models in local cities. With that, this is my mobile Model Mayhem, targeted to what looks I prefer. I suspect that not a lot of guys might use Moments, so I tend to create photos and texts that stand out and have a call to action (i.e. message or call me). The last three impromptu beauty photo sessions were all found on Tinder.

Lastly, the behemoth Facebook. I’m truly thrilled that Facebook keeps itself from falling out of fashion by constantly reinventing itself. Beyond biggest reach and engagement, Facebook filters are very subtle and work well with a large variety of photos, so I might even add a Facebook filter on already edited photo for more “pop”. If I shoot people, it recognizes and auto tags them, saving me time and helping get even higher engagement. Sometimes, I would even post photos on Facebook first!

What I left out in my workflow: Instagram, EyeEm, Priime, Google Photos and Flickr. I like those apps, and I use them occasionally, but my usage of them dropped dramatically — I rarely even open Instagram and feel that square format and filters have become generic (everyone is doing it), and boring (square was hip, but I prefer wider formats). Others, like Google Photos, work as a great backup utility, so I use it now once a month to check new photos into Google’s cloud.

So now I turn the attention to you and would like to ask three questions:

1) What apps do you use on a daily basis?

2) What have you stopped using?

3) What apps you wish you had?

6 Mobile Apps for a Pro Photo Workflow on the Go was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I grew up witnessing the music revolution. While still being in Russia, I travelled to the United States in the summer of 2000. In Lafayette, California, I was at home with my friends’ family. They had a big rich million dollar home, and had the fastest internet possible at that time — T1, a 1 megabit/s connection. It was insanely fast by my standards.

Back in Moscow I enjoyed unreliable 33.6K via the modem for a “low” price of around $1/hour. In Moscow, I’d try downloading a song or two I liked — each would take about 30–40 minutes if downloaded during the day, or about 15 minutes if downloaded at night (copper wires; shared capacity).

Other option for Muscovites would be to go to any subway station, and right in front of the entrance you can buy any music CD imaginable. They would cost $2. There were a couple of “legal” stores, but CDs there were priced at $20, unattainable for most people at the time.

In 2000, sitting in a home in Lafayette, I was introduced to Napster. It was magic. Any album, any artists — you could get it all for free in just a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

I quickly burned through all the CD-Rs that my friends had, and they had to introduce me to eBay, where I purchased a bulk order of 100 CD-Rs on a spindle. I burned them all, and came back to Moscow the happiest kid ever — I had all the music I should ever need, for free!

Fast forward 15 years later. We no longer buy CD’s. I bought the last one maybe in 2004, not because I needed one, but because I wanted to support the artist. I don’t even buy from iTunes. It all changed, seemingly overnight, to simply streaming. Pandora, Spotify, Songza, 8tracks, you name it.

This shift was unthinkable 15 years ago. No one could have told you that people would be comfortable paying for “virtual” stuff like this and that the companies would be willing to give away so much of it for free.

In the end, we settled in the middle — ad-supported lower-quality free streaming or ad-free premium offering.

Same thing happened to videos. From pirated cassettes and terrible voice-overs in the last days of the Soviet Union to Netflix. With iTunes or Amazon rentals, HBO and Netflix, there’s no more need to psychically own the media. When we moved to Canada, we brought with us a few dozens of videotapes — what a waste would be to do that today!

It’s funny, actually — when we moved to Canada in 2001, we were each allowed to bring 64 kilograms of stuff with us. The bulk of my things were hardcover books, ripped audio CD’s, a few videocassettes and magazines. I valued the experience of media so much, that I didn’t care for clothes or anything else. Nowadays, I don’t even carry music or videos in my pocket — it’s all in the cloud, available when you need it. Just stream it, don’t store it.

I think we’ll see the same happening to the photos. People take enormous amount of photos, and the days when Getty would send you print catalogue and charge arm and leg are pretty much over. We’ll have streaming too — unlimited, untethered, live collection of growing authentic photos from all over the world from people happily monetizing them. The market will figure a way to compensate people, same way as Spotify or Pandora or Netflix are negotiating the deals now… but without the extreme complexity of figuring out hundreds of custom contracts. At least not on the level of the average contributor.

I think in just 5 years we’ll take it all for granted. But for now, that remains a novelty.

The Media Revolution was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This post first appeared on February 4, 2015 on Medium and is written by Evgeny Tchebotarev, founder of 500px, a photo community and marketplace. He is currently consulting companies in Toronto, Taipei, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, on product management and markets in Asia.

I think it’s time for me to come clean. I have an unfair advantage. I know all the ins and outs of 500px Prime, and I know exactly what sells. So, in the two months, I’ve been putting a few photos on 500px that sell, which grossed me (after the 500px commission) $1,602.50 for photos that I already had (I had a few sales on Prime in August, but overwhelming majority of sales occured in last 2 months).

But I wouldn’t be writing this just to make you jealous. I want you to make more than me! In fact, we have tens of thousands of dollars in earmarked by buyers for current requests, so you can start making money right away. I guess that’s our best kept secret… until now.

The Obvious

The obvious truth is that photos with people sell. In fact, most purchases are photos of people doing things. What things, you ask? The same ones as you do every day — people cooking, people walking, people shopping, people going to movies, people having fun, people driving, people working, people drinking coffee, people holding hands… well, you get the idea.

The fact is, you are three times more likely to sell a photo and collect some serious cash if you photo has just two components: 1) it has a person in a photo 2) it has a proper model release attached. It’s that easy.

What to do if you don’t have a fancy studio or models? Just grab your friends. In fact, all the photos with people I’ve sold were photos of my co-workers and friends. How do you approach them to sign the release? Well… read on!

Getting the Release

If you are a people’s person, this shouldn’t be a problem. However, from time to time, you might get a little push back on getting the release signed. What to do?

First, try to get release before the photo shoot. I’m guilty of asking for a release after and that is usually complicated. By asking for the signature upfront, you get to talk about the uses and intentions.

If photography is your hobby, just tell friends that you’ll take them out for a dinner if you sell a photo (and I do both). Or, If you are shooting something fun in a cool location, i.e. in a cafe or a bar, just buy your friends a drink. That usually does the trick.

Keywords

One thing I’ve learned about licensing by working with my team was about how critical the proper keywords are. If the buyer can’t find your photo, they can’t buy it. Keywords are, thus, key (sic).

A good photo has at least 17 keywords. For me, that’s pretty damn tough. Where would I find 17 keywords to describe one photo? The basic concept, well covered in this article is to describe what you see. If that would be my own portrait, I’d use something like: Man, Male, Adult, Young Adult, 20–29 years old, One Person, Portrait, Studio, Blond hair, Blue eyes, Straight hair, Caucasian, White, Entrepreneur, Front view, Head and shoulders, Looking at the camera, Selfie, Confidence, White background, Professional, Black V-neck, Simple outfit, Office background, Modern office.

See what I did here? I just observed every little detail that I can think of myself right now and of my background. Keywords are essential, so make a good use of them. Don’t try to stuff everything into keywords — spammy keywords on most stock sites will penalize your position in search.

Listening to the Source

Another thing that helped me sell a photo that I took with my old iPhone 5 for a full $250 is active listening. The team does a bunch of things to help artists get paid and for buyers to get a perfect image. Here’s what we do:

1. Team sends a weekly email with buyer requests. Follow the trends and your photos are selected early.
2. We also tweet at @500pxPrimePD about requests in real time. If you are fast, you get more sales. There’s a new request every few days.
3. We run a group with requests, where you can read more details and quickly submit photos via your store.

Does this help? Absolutely. I don’t always have the photos that the buyers want, but when I do — I’ll be damned if I don’t submit a photo!

A Game of Skill

I think of it as a game of skill. I have almost 100,000 photos “offline” and maybe just 3–4 thousand online. So, 96% of my photos are not accessible to buyers. That’s why listening to what they need and quickly fetching a few photos, without bothering much with post processing, and uploading them to a set (without it being visible on my profile) is important.

Another thing is that you can license your photos exclusively with 500px. That means that if the buyer is looking for an exclusive, the team can negotiate on your behalf — often for prices a magnitude higher than the standard $250. Since most of my photos have never been licensed, it’s a great opportunity for me to be able to hit a jackpot — maybe just once, who knows?

The Challenge

500px is a fast moving environment. In the time it took me to write this article, I sold yet another photo. So now, my revenue stands at a pretty cool $1,627.50 for just a few minutes of work.

Now, I want you to go and make more than me. So here’s my challenge to you: make more money with Prime than I in the next 8 weeks and we’ll fly you to Toronto (or I fly to you) and I’ll treat you to a dinner.

Update:

How I Made $13,000 With 500px In Two-And-A-Half Years.

How I Made $1,602.50 With 500px Prime In Just A Few Weeks was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

More than a year ago I have wrote about the future of mobile photography, and, in particular, what mobile photography would look like in the future.
The key issue that I focused on was that Apple should open up Camera APIs that will, essentially, give access to RAW imaging data from the sensor.
A lot of things have changed since then. Microsoft has actually introduced RAW (DNG) support in Lumia phones in the fall of 2013, essentially creating a niche market for pro-level smartphone camera. Those Zeiss-blessed Lumia phones do have amazing optical design, great hardware, and, with DNG support, it offers unparalleled processing power.

Google’s Android has also stepped up in a number of ways. Google released a new separate camera app in spring of this year, essentially saying “f*** you” to the hardware manufacturers that used to butcher Android with custom skins and apps.

In June we also received a solid confirmation to earlier rumours that Android was also building a RAW support. The next version of Android, named Android L, with extended APIs should be in developers hands around fall time.

In August, Lytro Illum has launched, based on Android. I have been talking about Android taking over more and more markets for a while, and now we see a solid move from smartphones to in-car systems, and — of course — dedicated photo cameras.

What about iPhone?

Interestingly — and predictably — iPhone didn’t follow my suggestions. However, iOS 8 introduced a lot of improvements in the camera department. Predictably, camera quality is one of the most important features of smartphones. No one would seriously care about call quality or sound quality, as long as they work, but people are striving to take better photos with less effort.

The new iOS features a lot more fine tuning, introducing it for both Apple-designed apps and opening a lot of APIs to use with third-party developers.

For example, apps will be able to have fully manual controls, controlling focus, white balance, ISO and exposure compensation, opening a range of opportunities for developers, like William Wilkinson’s with Manual.
That’s a big step step in the right direction, offering seasoned photographers more freedom to express themselves.

Looking into next year

When you look at things from my perspective, you will be naturally very excited. I think that apart from actual invention of photography, there has never been so much promise and so much progress in such a short time.
For example, it was only a few weeks ago that we were wowed by the Microsoft’s research in the hyperlapse, and dreamed about how cool it would be to have an app like that, to actually having Instagram’s new Hyperlapse app, that is not just another research, but a delightful app that lives up to it’s promise.

Through my work with other photo startups I have been exposed to the new thinking and new methods of research. It is probably true that software is eating the world, and this time it’s photography, that is being eaten and reinvented.

So here’s a list of 6 predictions as to what we’ll see in a year.

1. More affordable full frame cameras in the compact body design.

Think of the ultra-expensive-but-wonderful Sony RX1. Probably the biggest surprise that we saw was the introduction of Sony A7, A7r and A7s, which showed that it is possible to put full frame sensor in compact body.
We’ll see more of those cameras, with fixed or interchangeable lenses. The prices will also be gradually falling as the market expands. The sensor cost will still be significant, so I don’t expect prices for full frame to fall below $1500, all while a few manufacturers will play with this interesting form factor.

2. Mirrorless cameras will get even smaller

We have seen this happening already — big bulky DSLRs replaced by much more compact mirror less cameras, and compact cameras almost completely dying as smartphones approached and exceeded the compact camera quality. Cameras like just announced Canon G7X or Sony RX100 III show a promise of a compact camera with a 1” sensor, enough for great quality photos in low light situations, allowing to bring a camera with you in more places.

3. New software and hardware light field cameras

Lytro showed us that it’s possible, and next year we will see software mimicking the effect as well as new hardware players trying to invent a new formats, somewhere on the edge of photo and video. There’s a chance that this will completely erase the different between photo and video as we know it today.

4. A truckload of Android-powered cameras

Smaller manufacturers will find that it’s a lot cheaper to use Android as software and stock components instead of building everything from scratch — firmware, processing logic, hardware and so on. Smaller players and entry-level cameras will concede to Android first, but in just a few years a chunk of market will be Android-powered.

Android will also probably focus on this market and will release dedicated Camera version of it’s OS, mimicking the success with Android One, a OS focused on less powerful phones in emerging markets.

And given that the market is huge, new OS makers will emerge in the next few years — HP, Amazon, Microsoft and a bunch of startups that don’t even exist today.

5. Consumer tools will leapfrog in advances professional tools

What shocks me the most is that we already started to see consumer tools, like VSCOcam and Instagram’s Hyperlapse that match, or even eclipse the professional tools. Creating a hyperlapse with DSLR, and then Photoshop or Premiere is a pain. Some, like Teehan+Lax tried to automate it, others, like Microsoft, tried exploring the “deep learning” behind it. In the mean time, tools available on our phones already produce results faster and less painful than our laptops and desktops do.

Google’s Photo Sphere is yet another pretty specialized app that utilizes a lot of algorithms to create immersive spheric 360 degrees images, something that was possible only with very sophisticated computing just a couple of years ago. This focus on specialized, computing heavy, apps will bring previously unaccessible professional looking results to the masses.

6. Purpose-built cameras

Another big leap will happen in purpose built cameras. Those are action cams or cams for specific needs. As prices drop, we will see $100 action cameras, like Polaroid Cube, cheaper GoPro alternatives, and more specialized cameras for motorcyclists, surfers and kite surfers, and so on. The cost of entering the market is at all time low, with 3D printing and plenty of off-the-shelf parts suppliers offering unique accessories via low-risk markets like Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Did I miss something? Do you disagree? Let me know in the comments, or, if you enjoyed this article, hit Recommend button right below. Thank you.

6 Predictions About The Future Of Mobile Photography for 2015 was originally published in Thoughts on Photography on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pressing the pause button on life.

A couple of years ago today I was in New York. I had become fascinated with the idea of ‘Street Photography’ also referred to as ‘Social Documentary Photography’. Personally I like the definition from photographer Ty Holland that “A photograph is the pause button on life.” I think that this quote is most applicable to this type of photography because the goal is to capture a fraction of a second that will never happen again. It just isn’t possible. A studio shot can be recreated but on ‘the street’ moments are gone faster than many of us can appreciate them. That is why the camera, any camera, is an incredible tool, because it allows someone to preserve that moment for others to see.

I downloaded and read legendary street photographer Thomas Leuthard’s two free eBooks on the subject in the couple of days leading up to the trip and left home with my new camera, motivated to create the kinds of images that had enthralled me.

I was skeptical as to whether or not I would be confident enough to bring out my camera at a time that may seem awkward in public. What I found in New York though was that there were so many opportunities to capture a 100th of a second of life that many of my photos appear interesting (rather embarrassingly) by accident.

I do not encourage you to aim for this but rather take the time to plan as many shots as possible because it is much more rewarding to create a photograph from elements that you noticed.

Being amongst swarms of other tourists allows you to blend in with whatever camera (or phone) you choose and create photographs without bothering anyone.

If you become interested in this style of photography then do not let your current location restrict you — enjoy the challenge of creating something interesting in a setting that may appear boring.

If you can though, go to New York. You will not regret it.

Shot in Sisters, Oregon with Emma Lawson

I know I’m a little behind by the fashion industry’s standards of when a season’s work should be shared, but I’m still in my first year at this fashion accessory business and still learning the ropes. All in all, I’m really just happy to have something to show for my work over these last few hectic months. This last week has been full of reevaluating my business priorities and coming up with a game plan for 2014.

I’ve decided to take the Spring/Summer season off from designing new items and instead focus on polishing and restocking some existing inventory, designing new marketing materials, festival-going (it’s very necessary for this gypsetting creature), redesigning Enlightened Bee’s website, and reshooting some product shots in the Etsy store that have been driving me crazy for months. If all goes well, I will come out on the other side as a new and improved business owner who feels a little more prepared for whatever 2014 may bring.

But, without further ado, I’d like to show you some of the photos that I’ve been working on from the Winter Hues (slash family adventure) shoot with model, Emma Lawson (sister-in-law); creative director, Gabrielle Griffy (mother-in-law); and lighting technician (husband), Daniel Erickson. I have the best family ever. Love you all!

My favorite shots from our two day shoot were taken on a neighbor’s fence during golden hour. In some of the photos, you may be able to get glimpses of the mountains looming in the distance along the treeline.

Emma’s eyes were so beautiful here. This shot only really shows off the bracelets and a bit of an earring, but it really helps to set the mood for the lookbook.

Prior to taking this, we were messing around with shots of the new rings in the snow. Some ice was left in the ring once we picked it up and Emma insisted we take a photo before it melted. I’m so glad we did!

As always, feel free to leave feedback for me in the way of comments or emails. All of these photos along with a few product shots and some landscape images taken on our roadtrip through Oregon will soon be put into proper lookbook form and available online as well as in print. I’m so excited to put them out on by vendor tables during the upcoming festival season! I’ll be updating this post with a link once it’s ready.

Much love,

Hannah Erickson