Pictures in the ATmosphere
Photo alternatives to Instagram, Pinterest and more!
One of my favorite things to explore in the ATmosphere is alternatives to mainstream sites. From the Discord and Reddit alternatives and especially the photo-sharing alternatives. It's fun to see these mega sites reimagined and with much smaller/less corporate communities.
Looking for a Pinterest alternative but like Pinterest back before everything was an ad for something? Currents is clean, beautiful and so easy to waste hours scrolling on. Create collections of all the things you want, the images that inspire you, the recipes you're going to try or anything your heart desires!
Looking for an Instagram alternative? My favorite part about Grain, besides all the beautiful pictures, is that you can use BlueSky's moderation labels if you're posting more not-safe-for-work content. A lot of people really appreciate that you can also track information about your camera setup, although I have personally never really explored this.
Zeens really has a serious photographer feel to it. They only allow "artistic nudity" and they are very similar to Grain except with way more options to organize your photos into Collections or Zeens. I'm still working on setting everything up over there and experimenting with this as a potential photo app in the ATmosphere but it really is a pretty place.
Clients
Now, I don't know if I'm using the term "clients" correctly but the following ATmosphere offerings are photo apps that take the photos you post to BlueSky and turn them into a feed reminiscent of Instagram. You can also add photos to them/utilized story functions and those posts will get added to BlueSky.
I don't really use any of these apps because I like reading through everyone's text posts as well but if you wanted to just look at BlueSky pictures without all the other noise, these are great options. Some of them can even be used without the BlueSky integration and become more like Grain.
Pinkleap shows off your feed of photos from BlueSky plus your reposts. You can also set it up so it only shows the posts thg you add to Pinkleap or pictures with specific hashtags. They also make where you can hide photos you don't want on your profile. Only 30 photos show up on your profile grid.
Much like Pinkleap, although a little less functional. I do enjoy scrolling through my photo-based BlueSky feeds here but other than that, I have a profile there and rarely ever check it.
There's a downloadable app for this one but I refuse to download anymore apps on my phone. So I don't know if that changes the experience here much. I like that you can see a ton of photography-related hashtags here but it works the same as Gridsky for the most part.
All of these apps are interesting although much like my fellow ATproto explorers, I don't know if any of them (outside of Currents - which isn't really the same as the others) feels like a full replacement for my photos on the web. I randomly and sporadically add photos to Grain (and probably eventually Zeens), whenever I randomly and sporadically take nature photos - which isn't really my purpose anywhere on the web. Also, aside from the "clients", none of these apps seems to have a bustling nsfw community, which is really what I'm looking for. Some of these apps even actively discourage it, which is an immediate turn off for me.
I intend to keep randomly and sporadically using all of the above, for science of course. But ultimately, I just keep posting my free photo content on BlueSky.
Remember to check the ATmosphere tag to see more of the ATproto tools and apps that I'm using. Also, if you ever come across a tool that you think I'd enjoy, don't hesitate to share it in the comments.
