Every once in a while a photo app or trend comes along that takes social media by storm. Take, for example, two years ago, when the Snapchat dog filters first peaked in popularity and you couldn't go on a single dating app without seeing a girl with a set of ears or a digital flower crown grinning back at you.
There have been apps like Meitu that focus on kawaii-ing your face, or even apps that can smooth, tweak, and remove all your flaws (Facetune, anyone?), but most recently the internet has been on a nostalgia kick.
And you can partially thank an app called Huji Cam.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg9XsbGAIkx/?hl=en&taken-by=selenagomez
Lately we've noticed something happening on Selena Gomez's social feeds. Her newest photos have a kind of lens flare and antiquated quality that we haven't seen since, well, disposable and instant cameras. Turns out that Gomez and a whole bunch of other Insta-stars are using a new app called Huji Cam that literally replicates the kind of photos you'd get with a throwaway camera. According to the app, 'Huji Cam makes your moments as precious as the feelings of analog film with old memories.' In fact, the Huji Cam viewfinder actually looks a lot like an old-school Fujifilm disposable camera (though the app's developers are quick to point out they are not affiliated with Fujifilm in any way). (Hello Giggles)
Now Gomez has the largest following on Instagram out of anyone on the planet (a whopping 139 million. That's a little over 3 times the population of Canada, to put things into perspective), so it's no surprise that once she started uploading pictures through Huji, people had to follow in her footsteps.
Now the app has blown up and become incredibly popular on social media with the #hujicam hashtag reaching nearly half a million posts in a couple of weeks.
Is it just me or is Instagram starting to look like it's 1998? My feed is full of retro-looking, grainy images with light streaks that look like they were taken on old school disposable cameras, date stamp and all... Did they really go through the trouble of using an actual disposable camera, developing film at the local CVS, then scanning, then uploading it to Instagram? Of course not. Like everything these days, there's an app for that. (Elle Magazine)
Huji Cam is 100% free to download and use. To use it, launch the camera from your home screen and hold the camera up to your eye, just like you were looking through the view-finder of a disposable film camera. This will make the camera go full-screen and you can shoot whatever you want. When you point and click, a tiny roll of film will appear on screen that implies your photo is 'developing'. You can then go to the 'Photo lab' and pick the photo you want to save to your camera roll.
Every photo you snap with Huji Cam is different. Some images may have a lens flare, some may be a bit more discolored/distorted, some may have a date and others may not. You can go to your settings to adjust the date to being current, '98, or none.
How do you snap your photos?
Are you someone who loves playing around with new photography apps, or would you rather stick to your regular standard camera app? Are you excited to download and play around with Huji Cam? Maybe there's a particular #throwback app for photography or video that you're obsessed with?
Let us know what your thoughts and comments are down below!
