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TUESDAY, FEB. 8, 2011

LIFE
313-222-6610
MARC BEAUREGARD JANET SMITH

features@freepress.com

CARLITO ALO

PEAKS AND VALLEYS: In his book Lastingness The Art of Old

Age (Grand Central Publishing, $24.99), Nicholas Delbanco explores geniuses of visual art, literature and music and why some peak as they grow older while others diminish. Delbanco will read from and discuss the book, 7 tonight, Nicolas Books, 2513 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor. Free. 734-662-0600. -- MARY LENDZION

On freep.com
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TECH TUESDAY

That 70s shot

SMARTPHONE APPS TAKE A RETRO APPROACH TO PHOTOS OF EVERYDAY MOMENTS
stack of 35-year-old photographs sits on Andrew Heatons desk. Yellowed and square, the pictures from 1974 the kind on that textured, thick paMARK W. SMITH per are waiting to be scanned into a computer for PLUGGED-IN his mother. The quality is atrocious on all of these, says Heaton, 42, of Clarkston. But theres charm in those imperfections. A reminder of the years that have passed. A warm memory of a simpler time.
LYNDSAY KAPURCH TONY BUTLER MAX BERKOWITZ JIM FETS ELAINE STOLT

Quality is, especially for photography, technology officer at Facebook, and Jack somewhat nostalgic, Heaton says. And I Dorsey, cofounder and chairman at Twitter. dont think that if I had a perfect, crisp Our new capital will also allow us to photo of that shot it would evoke those scale to the opportunity weve been handed same kind of memories. across a variety of platforms on mobile and Instant digital nostalgia is easy to find the Web, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom nowadays. Popular smartphone apps like said in a blog post last week. Hipstamatic and Instagram have created a movement of amateur photographers proPOINT-AND-SHOOT RIVAL ducing digital images that look as if they Smartphone picture taking has begun to were plucked from a 1970s photo album. take a serious bite out of another important The apps use the smartphones camera consumer electronics industry: the pointand send out square digital and-shoot digital camera. photos, some with borders Market research firm and artistic filters, that are iSuppli predicted earlier TOP SMARTPHONE intended to look just like this year that the point-andthose old pictures. shoot has about three good CAMERA APPS The result has been a years left before its sales HIPSTAMATIC groundswell of faux-nostalbegin to decline. Cost: $1.99 gic picture taking, a sort of iSuppli analyst Pamela System: Apple iPhone hipster renaissance, that Tufegdzic attributed this Key features: This app produchas filled social networks largely to smartphones, es the best retro images. with quirky and often beauwhich are now equipped Youll have to pay a bit for them, though. It comes with a tiful photos of everyday with cameras that rival set of lenses, film and flashes, activities. point-and-shoots. but you can buy more for 99 It becomes more a quick In particular, multimecents from inside the app. You little challenge to see how dia cell phones now can also buy prints from inside good you can make someequipped with higher-megathe app. thing look with a limited set pixel cameras are cannibalINSTAGRAM of options, says Daniel izing low-end DSCs (digital Cost: Free Morrison, 29, of Holland, an still cameras) that have System: Apple iPhone and iPod Instagram user. equivalent resolutions, Touch Tufegdzic noted in her reKey features: The big feature port. FIRST IN RETRO here is that the app is itself a And because most digital Hipstamatic led the way small social network of picture point-and-shoots cant acon this retro movement, takers. You can follow other cess the Web, the smartdebuting in late 2009. Since Instagram users and see the phone is often the easier then Hipstmatic prints have photos they share in a news feed. option to send photos to landed in a London art galfriends. lery and even on the front RETRO CAMERA Morrison, a software page of the New York Cost: Free developer, has a digital Times. System: Android point-and-shoot, but it nevThe iPhone app, deKey features: This is a good er leaves his laptop bag. signed to look like a cheap free Android alternative to Hipstamatic, with five vintage I cant even remember plastic toy camera, allows cameras to choose from and a the last time I used it, he users to choose a vintage number of other digital efsays. I dont even know lens, film and flash. Each fects. why its still in the bag. combination produces a I should probably just different artistic effect. PICPLZ get rid of it. Hipstamatic ($1.99) also Cost: Free System: Apple iPhone, iPod allows users to purchase Touch and Android actual prints right from STREAM OF Key features: A great free inside the app that are CONSCIOUSNESS alternative to Hipstamatic mailed to their home. But what about the qualthat also has an Android PicPlz is a nice free ality? Will we regret the day version. It has some of the ternative that also has a when we documented our same social networking feaversion for smartphones lives with smartphone apps tures as Instagram. running Googles Android that lacquered a permanent CAMERA + operating system. artistic filter onto each Cost: $1.99 The apps are built on a frame? System: Apple iPhone premise of creating beautiThe people who use Key features: This is a great ful photos of everyday mothese apps say theyre actupowerhouse camera for the ments and sharing them ally taking many more phoiPhone. Photos can be cropped, with friends on social nettos than they would have rotated and given any number works. without a smartphone in of effects and borders. Photos And, with smartphones can then be saved to the their hand. phone or uploaded to any always at the ready, picture Im not looking at these social network. taking has never been less as an archive, Morrison -- MARK W. SMITH cumbersome. says. If I was going to take It makes it really handy pictures that I really cared to be able to see something about I would probably use interesting, take a snapshot of it, post it and a real camera. get feedback from other people immediThese are more of like interesting oneately, says Heaton, the director of experioffs like a stream of consciousness. ence design at Southfield-based advertising For Heaton, who mostly chooses not to firm Doner, who has used Instagram since use Instagrams retro filters, its a way to its October launch. build a social network around informal Since that debut, Instagram, a free pictures. Shots of food, shots of people hes iPhone app, has amassed more than 1.75 met, shots of everyday happenings. million users and now sees more than That, he says, allows for a new way to 290,000 photos posted to the service each build relationships on the Web. day, the company says. I read their tweets, Heaton says. I The San Francisco-based Web service look at them on Facebook, I look at their last week said it had raised $7 million in photos and I get an understanding of who funding from Silicon Valley-based capital they are. firm Benchmark Capital. T CONTACT MARK W. SMITH: 313-223-4424 OR The backing includes contributions by MSMITH@FREEPRESS.COM. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER: @FREEPTECH such big names as Adam DAngelo, chief

CHERIE STANGIS

MAUREEN FRANCIS

ANNIE BIONSON

PAUL DELAURIER

LEFT: SMARTPHONE PHOTOS BY FREE PRESS READERS. GALLERY OF 100 PHOTOS, FREEP.COM