Most of us are part of the Instagram bandwagon; guilty of filling up our friends feeds with pictures of our cats, sunsets, selfies and of every meal we eat with an excess use of filters. Then comes along VSCO Cam, made for professional photographers in mind. The app is now in android and iOS and is called a photo-publishing platform unlike its counterpart. VSCO Cam puts the art of photography above the social aspect of the app and still man   to penetrate a large market beyond just professional photographers. The creators of the app, a couple from the design industry, are creative in the true sense of the word more focused on the art of photography than building marketing phenomena around their product. The mobile platform offers a range of free presets and editing tools for their user that emulates mobile photos into film quality and offer advanced editing tools for different prices. The app itself is beautifully designed whilst being user-friendly and having an ultra sleek interface.

In many ways, VSCO Grid is an anti-social social network. You can’t leave comments, you can’t click a heart icon or “like” something. What you can do is follow photographers whose work you admire. Discovery is curated, not automated. VSCO Cam doesn’t shy away from the social perspective entirely though ensuring that users can create a grid of their photos and share it on Twitter, Facebook as well as Instagram. What is interesting to note is that when a photos edited using VSCO is shared, #vscocam is automatically added making sure the world knows who is responsible for the film quality of a digital photo. VSCO Cam goes beyond just creating and selling editing products on the platform but enables users to create a ‘journal’.It’s a stunning, visual blog that’s been carefully curated by the VSCO team to showcase how a variety of photographers from all over the world use their tools. I personally am a huge fan of this journal option allowing me to see beyond filtered sunsets baring no resemblance to the real deal. The platform keeps the old school charm of photography intact all the while allowing users to be part of a community with real interest in photography.”When you walk into a museum, you wouldn’t see someone writing next to a piece of art or adding stickers next to it,” says Flory ,the founder of VSCO Cam “Our goal is to evoke a connection, but not in a way that’s like, ‘I love this photo. Awesome! Great! LOL. Art.'” The app strips of the excess noise and clutter found in other social platforms letting the images speak for themselves and giving priority to the art above anything else.

The VSCO Cam team has seen positive cash flows since its inception in 2012 and is focused in creating a sustainable business, looking forward to offer more than just an app. I for one am very excited to see what VSCO Cam will offer in the future. A question to be raised here is will Instagram be drowned in the future by VSCO Cam? Already more than 4 million of the photos shared on Instagram contain #vscocam proving that Instagram is being used as a social platform more than for its editing tools. In the words of the founder,””We’re active members of the Instagram community. But at the core they’ve built a communication tool.” Can VSCO Cam build a sustainable business from billing creatives for creatives alone? With VSCO Cam steadily increasing its community base, albeit in a far different manner, will it be possible it’ll topple over Instagram soon?

-Aishani

References:

• http://www.fastcompany.com/3015537/innovation-agents/vsco-cam-the-anti-instagram-is-the-future-of-mobile-photography
• http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/12/vsco-cam-adds-more-community-features/