Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Dronestagram, a drone photography sharing website and community has collaborated with National Geographic to pick the best pictures out of thousands of entries. the categories – which include people, nature and urban context – showcase a selection of impressive perspectives. from the windings roads of transylvania to lily ponds in vietnam, the shortlist presents the best seen footage from way up high.

A picture shows something. A photo tells a story.

 

Anyone can put a camera to their face and press the button. It’s called taking a picture. The ability to transform a picture into something interesting – a photo – is a skill.

 

It’s estimated that about four billion people will have the ability to put a smartphone camera to their face in 2017. One conservative estimate puts the number of images that will be taken at 1.2 trillion. Should all four billion of us average 10 photos a day, that number exceeds 14 trillion.

 

News is driven by imagery and, while the use of video online is ever-increasing, photography will always have its place. Unlike days of old (which aren’t all that long ago), where photos were by and large taken by news photographers, photography is now everyone’s domain.

 

Using the U.S. as a guide, just over 50,000 professional photographers were registered in 2015. The number of smartphones in the US in 2016 is expected to be just over 200 million. Allowing for some variance, the smartphone user to photographer ratio sits at about 4,000:1....

Free images and videos you can use anywhere

All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty free for anything you like, even in commercial applications. Attribution is not required.

In its quest to explore more interactive media formats, Facebook is today introducing a new feature called 360 Photos, which lets people share immersive photos that can be controlled and viewed from different angles by the viewer.

Available on the web, Android, and iOS, 360 Photos can be created by capturing a panoramic photo on your smartphone or by snapping a 360-degree photo through a dedicated app or 360-degree camera. You can then share the photo through Facebook, as you would any other piece of media, and the app converts the file into the relevant format for Facebook’s News Feed. The 360 Photos are marked by a little compass icon, and you can maneuver the photo around by tilting your phone, swiping with your finger, or clicking-and-dragging with a mouse (desktop)....

Visual content is an important segment of each website, blog and social media profiles. Of course, not everyone is able to have a large financial budget to  fully cover advertising, hosting, and therefore the visual part of your brand awareness and marketing strategy. There are many popular websites where you can find and download high quality images for your website or social media profile.

Of course, for FREE!

Check out these 10 Websites where you can find free photos....

Often times life takes over and we forget about the great adventures this world has to offer. Stuck between busy lifestyles and priorities, we miss out on activities that allow us to bring out our inner-daredevils. To get inspired, we went on Instagram in hopes of finding some fellow humans engaging themselves in some bold pass times; and boy did we find some amazing pictures. Our search was quite successful and we think it’s only fair if we share some of these with you. We would love to hear some of your adventure stories so please share your experiences with a comment below!...

When it comes to online imagery, it’s not so much about having images, as it is about making sure those images to give the visitor a sense of texture, size, scale, detail, context & brand.According to MDG Advertising, 67% of online shoppers rated high quality images as being “very important” to their purchase decision, which was slightly more than “product specific information”, “long descriptions”, and “reviews & ratings”....

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has unveiled an epic photo exhibit called “Wilderness Forever: 50 Years of Protecting America’s Wild Places.” The exhibit features jury-selected images that perfectly capture the gripping beauty of America’s wildest natural spaces.

The exhibit celebrates the Wilderness Act, an integral element of the U.S.A’s conservation efforts that, since its adoption in 1964, has protected more than 109 million acres of American wilderness.The exhibit was selected from more than 5,000 submissions from throughout the U.S. Many of the winning photos come from the stunning mountains and tundras of Alaska, the mossy mountain forests of the Pacific Coast, and the unique sandstone formations of the South-West – all regions worth exploring!...

Residents view the first iceberg of the season as it passes the South Shore, also known as "Iceberg Alley", near Ferryland Newfoundland, Canada April 16, 2017. REUTERS/Jody Martin

It snowed on December 19 in the Sahara Desert, and NASA's Landsat 7 satellite was there (or rather, hundreds of miles overhead) to see it.

The photo comes from Landsat 7's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus visible-light camera, and depicts the first snowfall recorded in the massive African desert in 37 years.

The snow-covered area depicted in the photo lies on the northern end of the desert, near the Moroccan-Algerian border and the town of Ain Safra. Here's the full image, which you can click to enlarge:...

Taking a great photo on your smartphone is not as simple as pointing and shooting. There are plenty of bad smartphone photos out there -- I'm sure you've seen at least a few.

 

What's the secret to taking great pictures with your smartphone, then? As it turns out, there are a few of them.

 

Check out these tips below to improve your smartphone photography game. (And once you have the photo-taking part down, check out some of the best photo editing apps for mobile.)...

“Humans are complex and unpredictable, and there’s no reason why brand visuals can’t be, too.” – Lauren Catten, Art Director at Getty Images

Imagination is one of the four factors that make for a powerful image, and nothing stirs it more than Surreality – one of iStock & Getty Images’ 2016’s top visual trends.  

The reason is simple: these original and sometimes peculiar compositions trigger a feeling of pleasure in experiencing the unpredictable. The aesthetic can transform an ordinary topic into something new and exciting. It can help distinguish a brand in a sea of similarity, making for memorable content that leaves a lasting impression. And, thanks to its hyper-immersive, psychedelic visuals, it has very broad appeal.

Nature-related images work as a particularly potent metaphor in this realm, leaving room for interpretation and creating meaningful connections with your content....

Dronestagram, a drone photography sharing website, recently announced the winners of its annual contest, and the photos are incredible.

Contest categories included nature, sports, and travel, with the winners of each category awarded the opportunity to have their photographs featured in National Geographic. They also received a new drone or drone gear, depending on which place they won.

The photographs were judged by a National Geographic editor, a National Geographic photographer, and Dronestagram's co-founders, Eric Dupin and Guillaume Jarret. This was the international contest's third year....

Photographer Denis Cherim began taking photos for his “Solo Para Locos” project when he was living in various countries for a year.

These photos started as a 365 challenge, which is when an artist challenges themselves to create something every day for a year!

Cherim is a completely self-taught photographer, which makes his eye all the more impressive....

Shot of the first post WWII nuclear test, Operation Crossroads in the Marshall Islands

There are so many great sources for free photos. I find myself asking these questions most every time I pick a photo—how to identify the right stock photo for a project. There’s a good bit of research and advice out there on how to make the best choice when it comes to stock photos. Take a look at what I’ve found here....

Thirty years ago, the Rolling Acres Mall outside Akron, Ohio, looked like the prototypical suburban shopping center of the time: High school students eating Sbarro in the food court, and crowds of people shopping at now-defunct stores like Waldenbooks. Today, boarded up and awaiting likely demolition, it's filled with snow.

Photographer Seph Lawless, who previously documented the mall for a photo book called Black Friday, made another visit after a recent snowstorm. "The skylights had caved in," he says. "As I looked up, snow fell on my face."...