Showing all posts about photos
Foto Walk by Foto App: making social media… social
24 July 2025
New from photo-sharing app Foto, Foto Walk:
A Foto Walk is a casual, inclusive gathering of photographers who meet up to walk, shoot, and connect in real life. There are no rules, no competitions, and no pressure — just people who love photography coming together to explore their local area with fresh eyes.
Walks can be small or large, quiet or social, digital or analog — everyone is welcome. Whether you’re shooting film, phone, or digital, Foto Walks are about slowing down, being present, and building community through shared creative energy.
Imagine that, a socials app facilitating in person socialising, instead of binding members to screens and algorithms. Otherwise, what a great idea.
Anyone who wishes to can register to become a walk host in their area, organise gatherings, then get together for a few hours of photo-taking with local Foto members.
I joined Foto a few weeks ago, and this news arrived by newsletter on Monday. They have a quite a bit in the pipeline at the moment, and are certainly positioning themselves as a serious alternative to certain of the other photo-sharing apps around.
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photography, photos, social media
Meta wants to copy the photos on your phone and soup them up
1 July 2025
Sarah Perez, writing for Techcrunch:
As the pop-up message explains, by clicking “Allow,” you’ll let Facebook generate new ideas from your camera roll, like collages, recaps, AI restylings, or photo themes. To work, Facebook says it will upload media from your camera roll to its cloud (meaning its servers) on an “ongoing basis,” based on information like time, location, or themes.
In short, if you allow it, Meta will upload the contents of the photo library on your phone to their servers. In return, Facebook (FB) will create all sorts of nice stuff for you, using some of their AI tools.
I’m not a fan of this idea. People have all sorts of private images on their camera rolls, that they have no intention of sharing with anyone. Meta say these images won’t be made public, but I still don’t like the idea of FB keeping private photos on their servers, quite possibly in perpetuity.
Concerned I might accidentally — somehow possibly in pocket-dial fashion — agree to let FB take what’s in my photo library, I’ve since deleted the app from my phone. Unfortunately, a number of friends and family pretty much use FB for doing everything, including keeping in contact (many long since stopped email) with all their friends, so getting rid of FB completely isn’t an option at present.
From now on I’ll login to FB through the website, on my laptop, now and then to check for messages.
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artificial intelligence, photos, smartphones, social networks
Foto, an Instagram-like photo-sharing platform and alternative
28 June 2025
While I am (slowly, very slowly) working to host my snapshot photos here on disassociated, I couldn’t resist signing up for Foto, a new Instagram-like photography platform.
Unlike similar platforms, Foto offers posts in chronological order, free of adverts. Foto also undertakes not to crop any images uploaded by members. Revenue will be generated by yet to come pro features, which members can opt for if they so desire.
Describing Foto as new is not completely accurate though, as the startup has been around for close to three years. In that time, it has, according to a welcome email I received, worked with sixteen-thousand testers (an impressive number), since going into beta about eighteen months ago.
There is, at the moment, in my early hours on the platform, an encouraging degree of interaction.
Despite only having one follower at present, the five photos (including the one above) I have so far posted have garnered up to half a dozen likes, from people I don’t even know. How often does something like that happen on the other, algorithm-saturated, platform?
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photography, photos, social media
An art deco delight by night in the Sydney suburb of Randwick
29 May 2024
Randwick is a large suburb located about five kilometres south east of downtown Sydney, Australia.
It is home to the Prince of Wales hospital, Royal Randwick Racecourse, a thriving commercial and retail hub, large bus and light rail depots, the historic Ritz Cinemas, and arguably, the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Even though UNSW has its own post code, two sides of its sprawling complex border Randwick.
Randwick sounds like a bustling centre, and it is, but slip down a side street, and suddenly you’re in a whole other world: the quiet realm of suburbia. I walked passed this apartment building the other evening, and almost didn’t stop. But something made me do a double take. I’m not sure what it was.
Was it the neatly clipped grass verge sloping away down the street? The branches of a tree, partly lit by a nearby street light, splaying across the front of the building. The Moon trying to peek through clouds above the roof of the building. Or the welcoming glow of the lamp over the door.
Whatever it was, the scene before me had photo written all over it.
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Espresso, Lady J Cafe, Bondi Junction, Sydney
1 July 2022
For Flash Back Friday. Espresso at the sadly long closed Lady J Cafe at Bondi Junction in Sydney, a snap I took several years ago. At the moment I’m using part of the image for the header on my Twitter page.
Lady J was an institution in its day, and I think it’s telling that a number of cafes and restaurants that have occupied Lady J’s old retail premises since, have struggled to make a go of it. They last a short time and close. The store space is along the bustling Oxford Street, so it’s not as if there’s a shortage of foot-traffic, or the place is hidden away.
Interesting, I was searching for the Lady J Instagram page, and found another IG page for a cafe with the same name and a similar logo, opening “soon”, somewhere in Texas. If it’s operated by the same people, and the similar logo certainly seem to suggest that, then Texans are in for a treat.
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Photos of the construction of Sydney Opera House
27 June 2022
A collection of incredible photos of the Sydney Opera House, taken during its construction. Today the Opera House is one of the most recognisable buildings in the world, but it seems Sydneysiders were not enamoured by the iconic structure while it was being built.
Today the building is loved, yet while it was under construction attitudes were very different. The local press continually attacked its cost, its delays, and its architect; headline writers gave the now familiar white shell roof nicknames such as ‘the concrete camel’, ‘copulating terrapins’ and ‘the hunchback of Bennelong Point’.
What’s also compelling about these photos is both how much has changed, and how much has remained the same, when looking at the areas surrounding the land the Opera House stands on.
Via Things Magazine.
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Australia, history, photos, Sydney