Instagram-free travel pictures

It’s been one the latest biggest news in Social Media: Instagram releases an Android version and gets bought by Facebook for zillions.

I reckon some time ago I said I envied those Instagram people, but that I had found substitute in the Retrocamera App, especially its Xolaroid filter. And I still use it. Some weeks ago I traveled to the Canary Islands with my family and took this shot from the beach.

I love the vintage look of it, like a 70’s family vacation picture.

However, some time before they released the Android version, I had already downloaded a bigger and better substitute for Instagram: Streamzoo. This App allows you to change the shape, colors, focus, filters etc. You can add #hastags in the description just like twitter and follow users and tags. I don’t think I’m missing anything special about Instagram, apart from the number of users I guess.

You can see some examples below:

Little Girl with Exotic Animals

You may haven’t heard of her but you can find Robin Schwartz’s photos in such places as The Metropolitan Museum of Art or The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art amongst others. And it doesn’t surprise me.

Her work Amelia’s World: Animal Affinity can now be seen at her website, next to other animal related portfolio. There you can see a series of pictures where a lovely little girl interacts with all kinds of exotic animals: elephants, monkeys, lamas, kangaroos…

But they’re not anything like those shots portraying a tourist smiling next to a koala in Australia, they are about how all living beings are connected somehow.

In her own words:

My photographs are drawn from real journeys undertaken with my daughter, Amelia. […] Photography gives us the opportunity to access our dreams, to discover the extraordinary.

Extraordinary yet so costumbristic at the same time.