As photographers, we all remember many years ago the first real introduction of a place where we could share our photo’s with the world, that was Instagram. Since then, it was bought out by the greedy Yank and his mates and the shift on photo sharing as such has long gone in favour of money and making as much money as possible. I refer to their ad’s, reels and full on advertising which photographers like myself have no interest in. So what are the others choices for us photographers these days who don’t see Instagram as the future of sharing. Well, here’s my findings
First of all, let’s take a look at Grainery first. Here’s an app, and a desktop version too, thats been designed with us film photographers in mind. No digital here thank you. The developer is a guy call Kyle Johnston. He launched back in 2022 with great intensions Im sure to develop it further but as its progress over the years on the r&d has fallen flat. No improvements, no real shift in its flexibility just pretty static if Im honest. Don’t get me wrong, any new photo sharing app is a blessing in relation to Instagram. In Kyle’s defence, a one man operation such as his, with a limited pot of money is going to suffer, and it has.
Im not a smart phone user but Im told that its a bit glitchy to say the least. On a desktop, there are some issues there too but its still a great way of displaying your photo’s. There are of course some similarities to the Instagram’s design and lay out but that works.
So, two years down the line, Kyles not really moved forward to a degree. There is no support with this app, and I mean, no support.
Whats the future for Grainery. I guess we’ll have to wait and see…
And so we move onto Newgrain. Here’s an app, and a desktop version soon, thats is the brain child of founded by Tim Issenmann, a passionate film photographer himself. He launched in early 2023 and its content is building at speed, just as did Grainery in its early days. However, what seems to make Tims app a little more robust is the fact that it’s not just him working on it and I understand he has some funding behind it. So when it comes to the r&d and development front, Newgrain is always going to be ahead of Grainery.
For me personally, Newgrain already has the edge. It is always about what suits you best I reckon. Im not going to go into the in’s and out’s of costs, which are part of both these app’s. You can have a look yourself and make your own judgement.
Here’s something to remember though. Photographers such as myself are moving away from that greedy little mans platform and looking for something different that has one main goal in mind, sharing images alone. RD