Old-School-Cool - New Old Trends In Modern Photography

It started with vintage fashion, furniture and even appliances. Then the craze moved to music, with vinyl records quickly becoming the "in" thing in retro cool. Now it seems as though photography has also been swept up in the craze for all things vintage, with photographers everywhere seeking out ways to lend their photos an air of authenticity with a vintage colour filter, or some fading around the edges. There is a huge, ever-growing range of vintage photo applications that anyone can use to get instantly-artsy, grainy photos. Mobile applications aside, here's a list of options to make your photos a little more interesting.

" Photo editing software - depending on how in-depth you want to go with your vintage photo apps, there are a number of downloadable desktop programs to satisfy your needs. Poladroid is a free program for making random, old-style photographs with a white instant border. For something more in-depth, CameraBag lets you layer different effects and border shapes with additional filters available on their website.

" Pre-set camera modes - Black & white, negative, or sepia colour effects have been trumped by modern camera settings. Many people don't realise that even advanced digital cameras such as the Canon EOS 60D still offer built-in creative art filters such as soft focus, toy camera, grainy black & white, and vintage Polaroid effects. You can take unique, vintage-style photos on your compact digital camera or digital SLR without having to worry about editing.

" Free online services -Phix, Picnik, and Rollip are three online options for those who don't want to download programs onto their desktop. There's a huge range of customisable layers and filters, or you can just hit the 'random' button and let the programs do all the work.