GIF-Making PHHHOTO Comes to iPhone
The motion-capturing photo booth gets even more social
For over a year now we’ve been loving PHHHOTO‘s moving image minimalist set up—even using it for our holiday party. Above and beyond most other portable photo booths out there, PHHHOTO employs an incredibly flattering light ring attached to an iPad, and an app that’s as easy to use at the end of the night as it was in the beginning. The result is a highly shareable animated GIF from a five-second moment. Altogether, it’s unpredictable fun that captures one-of-a-kind moments. While the device has been making the event and social scene rounds, today we’re pleased to announce that PHHHOTO has launched an iPhone app. Not only does it aggregate any GIFs you may have appeared in (and shared) since its inception, it allows you to build GIFs all your own—with only your iPhone.
As the experience shifts from a face-recognizing kiosk to an in-hand adventure, the range of creative options will change. The app is designed much the same way we’ve become familiar with social media. A home screen provides a feed, complete with your GIFs and those that you follow, a center camera button activates the GIF-maker, and a “You” category allows you to check up on your posts, parties, the friends you follow and even likes. Within the camera, users can set a self-timer, control the flash, overlay a grid for framing or flip between the front and back camera. All of the images are captured in sequence—there’s no option to control the timing or order of them. We like this feature because it results in animations that offer a curious interpretation of what really happened. Once the PHHHOTO is made, there a final option to choose whether to apply a black and white filter.
According to the founding team of PHHHOTO and software company HYPERHYPER, “PHHHOTO got its start shooting instant, animated selfies of social people at big parties and events. At a certain point, we realized thousands of people were using PHHHOTO at the same time, in the same place, out in the real world. Our new app is the first step toward social features that can create spontaneous connections between all these people.”
And it has worked so far, allowing for the instantaneous capture of something memorable. “Camera hardware and software generally has two modes: shoot a picture or record a video,” they continue. “PHHHOTO is somewhere in between.” The team has collectively recognized that pictures look better when moving and no fuss was added to the production. Altogether, PHHHOTO makes it easy to create mesmerizing visuals out of the most ordinary scenes using just an iPhone, but what really matters is that it happens to be a lot of fun.
The iOS PHHHOTO app is available for download from iTunes for free.
GIFs by Josh Rubin
