5 Ways to take better Instagram photos

Instagram is an online photo & video sharing and social networking service. It allow users to take pictures, shoot videos, apply digital filters to them and share them on a variety of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Fourquare, Tumble, Flickr etc. Instagram photos have a unique look. Instagram has a distinctive feature that confines photos to a square shape.

Instagram was launched in October 2010 and since then it has been the talk of the town. Probably because it is one of the first social networking application that was based around photos and later on videos too. Within a year of its launch, Instagram became one of the most popular photo sharing, video sharing and social networking platform with a rapid increase in user base.

1. Take photos in the Golden hour i.e. dusk or dawn. Golden hour is the time when you can capture some gorgeous pictures. Knowing that Instagram photos already look beautiful, capturing some at this time become even prettier. Unlike the harsh light during the mid day, light at this time is warm, soft and diffused.

2. Use another photo application in combination with Instagram. You don't have to just use the Instagram filters when posting a photo to your Instagram account. You can use Instagram in combination with other photo app that allow you to click creative photos. Like an app that allows you to enhance colors and then upload it to your Instagram account.

3. Double filter. Yup, there is a way to apply double filter to your Instagram photo. Confused? Here's how you can do it. Put your phone on 'Airplane' mode when filtering a photo. Doing this will not load the photo to your Instagram account, but will be saved on your phone. Later, you can open the same pic and filter it again before posting it to Instagram.

4. Apply rule-of-thirds. Don't always put your subject in the center of the frame. Instead, position it either the right or the left of the screen. You may be surprised to see the difference it makes by not positioning the subject in the center.

5. There is a general belief that your phone's camera takes better picture than the Instagram app. You can experiment taking pictures with your phone's original camera and Instagram it later.