Hey y’all! You know I love nothing more than to share the things that make my life and photography business thrive! I have rounded up my 5 absolute best apps for photographers to use! I have included ones that I just can’t live without and ones that are lifesavers in my day-to-day business operations and even some personal favorites. Check them out!
Have you ever had one of those shoots where the kids are just at the end of their rope, melting down and you have exhausted all your tricks, treats and bribes? This is when Talking Carl comes out of my pocket! It’s an iPhone app with a talking funny, goofy littler character named Carl that repeats everything you say and usually gets kids attention immediately! The $1 spent on this app has always been a win for me, I will share more about this app and exactly how I use it in my upcoming course!
Sun surveyor is a bit more of a spendy app, but for me it’s worth it because I can track the sun and where it is going to be and when. If you are a photographer like me I am someone that is always chasing light and needs the light to be at a certain place, so this app shows me a direct GPS coordinate and an arc of exactly where the sun is going to be all day long! How cool is that y’all? This is a great option if you can’t get out to scout a location or if it’s a place I have never been to. Before driving all the way there I can quickly see if there are any treelines or lots of tree coverage that would hinder the light. This is a timesaver!
As a free option this is a simple and easy to use app that displays all the important sun times. This is so great to have during wedding meetings so that you know in March 2017 when the sunrise and sunsets will take place. I love using this app because I try and shoot during that golden hour if I can, and this helps me place what times things need to be, based on the time the sun will be setting and in what area code.
I don’t know about you, but at the end of the year when you have to go back and calculate mileage I want to bang my head on my computer! This app tracks everywhere you go right on your phone. You can swipe for business or swipe for personal. There is an initial investment but for me it saves hours and hours of work come tax time. It tracks the mileage for me and gives me monthly reports. It is AMAZING! I am so excited for the end of this year when I don’t have to calculate mileage the old fashioned way again.
I use this app to deliver my galleries to clients and have joined as a lifetime member. I love the accessibility of this app! At the end of a session I can walk through with my clients what it is going to look like when the photos are delivered to them and what it will most likely look like on the computer as well. I like this primarily as a marketing app and added bonus so they can share photos with their friends and family quickly and it doesn’t take up storage space on your phone!
I use this app all of the time, on my drive to sessions or on my drive home. This has been a really good use of time for me. I personally love listening to creative business podcasts, sermons and different things that just fill my soul up on the way to work. Here are links to some of my favorite podcasts. Enjoy!
Berean Baptist (our church sermons! Awesome)
Revelation Wellness (amazing to run and walk to)
One Extraordinary Marriage Show
This is your life | Michael Hyatt
PERSONAL FAVORITES
We are all so busy we need a few personal photo type apps ourselves to be able to capture our family moments in the making!
This allows you to take a quick video clip everyday and then at anytime you can put together a compilation of all the clips! It’s amazing and I’m hoping to make it most of the year!!! So fun to watch! And atthe end of the year you have a beautiful video documenting the past moments you’ve captured.
Every month I get a reminder to take 100 photos off my phone and print them in REAL LIFE! Then it get’s shipped to my house! I am a HUGE fan of Shark Tank and this was on the show years ago (now bought out by shutterfly) but I love them! This quality isn’t as high as my next favorite, but then I don’t feel as bad, tearing them out and using them for art projects or more!
This app ALSO lets you to create identical copies of photos and send them to parents or grandparents. This is a great way to get all your photos off your phone as well in case of that unexpected phone drop or water damage.
Well first they are STUNNINGLY beautiful! For me they are more like a collection for our home & book shelves. I have my instagram feed automatically update and I get a book when 60 images are up! This app allows me to back up my Instagram feed (AND WORDS which is SO important for me) and you can also print from a specific a hashtag feed as well! I need to check out the hardcover books, I have heard amazing things! I have so enjoyed looking back at even 6-7 months ago and reading where my heart was at then.
Of course DropBox is always another great option to store and back up your photos! As well as I have heard. Google Apps does this for free, but I love having all my photos from 2009 even safely stored on my dropbox SO THAT I CAN MAKE MORE ROOM FOR MORE IMAGES!!
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Want to learn another fun tip from me? Check out this video download.
PS :: Chatbooks image above by Maihannadls , what a beautiful feed she has y’all! So colorfull and fresh!
I use google photos and I love it. it’s free and I download them all to my pass gallery specifically for my daughter’s pictures I take throughout the year:)