Now I use a high end SLR to capture my vision, but lately I’ve been playing around with this application. The thing that really hits me is that it’s easy, fast and has some quirky filters that lets you turn a bland, everyday photo into, let’s face it, what a lot of people would call art.

Instagr.am managed 500,000 downloads in its first month. What has made it so successful? Simple. It makes the average person, who may have very limited artistic ability, feel like an artist. Everyone wants to feel creative, and they would love ways to express themselves without the burdens of mastering specific skills. And that is what Instagr.am does. And by clever use of #hashtags, these artistic relics can be easily shared around the world.

The team at Instagr.am describe it as “a fun & quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your iPhone, then choose a filter to transform the look and feel of the shot into a memory to keep around forever. We’re building the platform to allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen. We imagine a world more connected through images of what happens around them – whether through friends or people across the world.”

And now, off the back of its popularity, it’s making its way into the commercial industry, specifically the music scene. We can’t wait for the upcoming Nirvana Exhibition in London and to complement this, we’ve developed a remote streaming Instagr.am application for the event.

And to take it one step further, it’s now become the medium of choice for a London-based indie group, The Vaccines, who have chosen to use user-submitted photos in creating their music video.

Quinton O’Reilly, from Simply Zesty writes:

“If you ever had to think up of the ways to make a music video, using iPhone apps wouldn’t be the first thing to come to mind. Yet a UK band have thought just that and have decided to do something different for their next music video.

The Vaccines, a London-based indie rock band, have decided to create the video for their new single, ‘Wetsuits’ by using crowdsourcing as their method. They’re asking their fans to take photos of any music festivals they attend (or have attended) using Instagr.am and upload them to a special site to be used in their new music video.

Fans can tag their selected photos using the hashtag #vaccinesvideo, where they would then be. All photos that are sent are published on an online gallery which is updated regularly and the selected photos will be combined to create an animated photo video.

It’s believed that The Vaccines are the first band to use Instagr.am images to create a music video although they are not the first to use photos to create a video, chances are others will follow suit if it’s successful.

Instragr.am is an iPhone photo sharing app that allows you to take and share retro styled photos, publishing photos a vintage style similar to those found with old Polaroid camera.”

Check out the Vaccines’ creation here.

We LOVE Instagr.am and we may even dedicate a section where Flex, who is a wee bit too small to hold a digital-SLR, can showcase his on-the-go artsy creations soon!

O2 isn’t always the most intimate of venues, but being right up the front we were treated to what felt like an intimate performance from Brad – so much so that he was the gentleman as always and took off into the crowd to play some songs up close to those who weren’t as lucky to be right up near the stage.

Kiss The Frog snapped up loads of photos to capture the atmosphere of the night – which included some incredible performances from opening act, the ever-talented Darius Rucker (known to some as former frontman for Hootie and the Blowfish), and a real surprise cameo from Ronnie Wood who joined in the encores, kicked off by “Alcohol” (the song!).

We were so lucky to be treated to such American stars here across the pond – it’s not often we get this caliber of talent, but when we do, it’s clear that everyone relishes in it. Thanks Brad and Darius for gracing us with your awesome melodies and talented songwriting – we’re already waiting for the announcement of your next tour!

To check out all the photos from last night’s gig, head on over to our Facebook page and Like Us

Rob and Erica are both very charismatic and have definitely been around the scene for a while – so, combining our desire to promote the genre here in the UK, we approached Erica with a view to getting their online presence up to speed and are excited to announce that we’ve got the work and are meeting with them next Thursday to go through the brief. Combined with their passion and experience in the country music scene and our knowledge of getting things translated into results online, we cannot wait to begin work on the design and development of 2country.net!

Stay tuned for the website over the coming months!

There has been rigorous competitor and technology research on this particular brand to offer the user both a highly informative and interactive site and balancing this with a simple structure to ensure a pleasing and non-invasive online experience.

Fully content managed using WordPress, Inspire (Volunteering Abroad) utilises a number of optimisation techniques which FutureSense have expressed as being key to their rise in the gap year/career break travel market.

Inspire Volunteering is committed to providing meaningful volunteer work that contributes to worthy causes across the world. They strive to support underprivileged communities by offering responsible, ethical and eco-friendly voluntary work for individuals and groups wanting to make a difference on a career break or gap year abroad. They work closely with non-government organisations, charities and other community based organisations to identify development issues in overseas communities and to coordinate effective volunteer programmes to address these in a sustainable way.

Kiss the Frog are now in development of their fourth and final brand, Travelling to Teach, with expected completion by the end of this month.

You can visit the new website here.

With the weather beyond everyone’s expectations, the wedding day was a spectacular affair with over 90 guests flying in from all over the world. Needless to say, we spent the entire day and evening following the bride, bridesmaids, groom, family and friends around the extravagant grounds in order to provide them with memories of the special day.

This was only Kiss the Frog’s second wedding shoot, but judging by the feedback, definitely an area we are keen to pursue within our photography core.

Congratulations again to Justin and Katarina on what everyone agrees was a magical day, and thanks for the opportunity to be able to freeze it in time for you.

A selection of photographs from the day can be viewed here.

Challenges Abroad specialises in providing group challenges designed to test and inspire you.

Their adventure tours offer a unique combination of trekking and community volunteer work, giving you the chance to push yourself physically while contributing to the lives of those less fortunate. With the opportunity to work towards personal and communal goals in a short period of time, their trips are perfect for a charity challenge or group adventure.

You can visit the new website here.

NEW YORK – At the 2010 Streaming Media East Conference, Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced major new advancements to the Adobe Flash® Platform — Adobe’s design and development platform for creating and delivering content, video and applications that run consistently across operating systems and devices. Highlights include the immediate availability of Adobe Flash Access™ 2.0 software, a content protection solution that enables the distribution and monetization of premium video content, which can help create new sources of revenue for media publishers. In addition, Adobe is also showcasing HTTP Dynamic Streaming, a new protocol support for media streaming on the Flash Platform; and the Open Source Media Framework, to accelerate development of custom media players.

Adobe demonstrated its new solutions during the Streaming Media East 2010 Conference at its booth (#226) at the New York Hilton Hotel, May 10-12.

Read more.

Read the full article by Venture Visuals

Soda Pictures is “upping its game” with a new fund to buy slightly bigger films. The London-based distributor has set up a new $3m (£2m) distribution fund called the Soda Film Fund (SFF), to bolster its acquisitions and optimise their release campaigns. The SFF has already attracted seed money for its first two films: Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, the continuation of the Chanel story starring model Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen. Both films were acquired from Wild Bunch. They will be released this summer.

The SFF aims to pick up 8-10 films over the next year and release them all by the end of 2011. This venture is a partnership between Soda Pictures and Lumiere Film Investments, and was put together by Soda Pictures Managing Director Eve Gabereau and Lumiere Film Investments founder and film financier Nick Crossley.

Read the full article.

The sweetener is that the first 500 people to book tickets using their Twitter ID would be able to redeem a 50% discount (still valid as of 2pm EDT, 20 Feb). If they’re not “following” the airline on Twitter, they will auto-follow. Even the official press release re-directed recipients to the Twitter URL.

Read how Virgin America has approached this.