3 Photo Sharing Tools For Moms That Are Dripping With Awesomeness

I love photography.  I've taken a few gems with my DSLR over the past 3 years, but one of my favorite sayings has quickly become "The best camera is the one that you have with you".   Do you know what camera I always have with me?

My iPhone.  

Most of my kid's lives have been documented on my iPhone.

My engagement in 2010?  Celebratory photo taken with my iPhone.  Moving across the country from Louisiana to California?  Photo taken with my iPhone.  Christmas recitals, preschool graduations, and awards ceremonies?  iPhone, iPhone, iPhone.

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No matter you're a die-hard Android user or you can't live without your iPhone, chances are the camera on your smartphone is the camera that is with you at all times.  And thanks to technology that keeps getting better and better - today's smart phones take photos that are of much higher quality than that of the first and even second generation digital cameras.

With that comes the dawn of a bunch of great photo sharing services - a few of which I think all moms should know about and will definitely want to use.  

1.  Picplum.  Picplum is by far my favorite of the bunch.  I was a super early adopter of this awesome service and can now say that I've been using them for over a year.  

Here's how it works - you upload your favorite photos, either via your phone or your desktop, and once a month Picplum automatically prints and ships those photos to your designated list of recipients.  Each month my grandparents (who are not tech savvy), my parents, and Morgan's parents and granparents get updated photos of us and of the kids.  The photos are anything from ones of us at lunch, on vacation, or running around Disneyland - but they are always a great way to share what our month has been like.  It helps us to feel close - from California, Connecticut, Mississippi, Maine, and Louisiana.

We even added ourselves to the list so each month we get some printed photos of the kids to frame - we have way too many that live only on Facebook.  Picplum also recently upgraded its services - now you can choose your print size (you can even print your square Instagram photos) and include captions on the back of the photos - plus a personalized message to the recipient.  Cool, right?  

2.  Snapstagram.  Snapstagram is actually somewhat of a competitor with Picplum, but it is made just for Instagram photos.  So what do you get?  Well, for an even 6 bucks, you get 12 of your Instagram photos, printed and shipped directly to you.  Not bad, right?  They only come in rolls of 12, and you don't have to upload anything - you log in to Snapstagram directly through Instagram itself then all you have to do is drag and drop your favorites.

We've already ordered 2 rolls from Snapstagram and have been very pleased with the overall quality, speedy delivery (we received our prints within the week!) and super cool, minimal packaging.

Snapstagram really shines for the casual smart phone photographer that simply wants to document a few memories.

3.  Flock.  Flock is different than the previous two tools in that it is not a photo printing service, but a photo sharing app.  Have you ever been at an event, or on a vacation (much like I am now - with 11 people) where you wished you could just gather all of the photos in one place?  Flock does that for you, and helps you to solve that problem.

Once everyone has Flock installed on their phones, Flock notifies you when you have photos to share - because it knows who else was with you at the same times and at the same place.  It prompts you to share your photos into one big album with just the touch of a button - and voila!  Everyone has one big album full of memories.  Cool, right?  

What photo sharing services do you use?