A while ago I heard about a new Social Media site called Steller. To be honest I can’t quite remember how I heard about it, but I joined up, got the app for my phone and then forgot all about it. Typical of me sometimes. Then the other day my friend Chris put it up on her site and I said, “hey what is it”. She told me about it and when I went to get it I realised I already had it.
Chris and I are trying to work out how to use it and slowly we got there. Since taking the time to look at it, I am liking it, I have to say. I like what it does, shall I explain?
Where most Social Media sites just display one image at a time with no way of organising them into groups, Steller lets you do just that. You can make stories with your photos, so they become like a book that people look through. I think it is fantastic.
Here are a couple of my stories.
If you click on them they will come up so you can flick through them.
These are a selection of my photos from New York. It looks like a great way to show a selection of images for a particular place.
I also did one for the Great Ocean Road trip I just did.
If you click on my name it will take you to my place on the site. I don’t have many stories yet, I only just started. I am also still working out how to do this. I’ve been looking for articles on using it, but there don’t seem to be a lot. I will keep looking.
The stories can be a bit time consuming, and it is up to you how much work you put into them. The research I have done so far recommends posting once a week, though 3 times a week will get you noticed more. I think 3 times, that could be hard to maintain. Obviously you need to spend time going through other peoples stories and following people. They recommend the stories should be no more than around 20 pages, mine have a few more, but they are just the ones I started with.
I keep thinking of photos that I can put into stories. Ones that from a day trip somewhere, or from a holiday, maybe putting photos together that are all the same, like some cityscapes. You can also include video as well, which I haven’t done yet, but I hope too.
It looks like a great place to show photos and I’m going to give it some time and see what happens. I haven’t worked out everything with it so far, but I will keep trying things to see if I can discover how it all works. I will update you at some stage when I know more about it.
Have you seen it before? What do you think? Let me know if you join and follow me, I will follow you back.
Hello! Your photography is beautiful, it tells a beautiful story. It makes me even more passionate about my desire to photograph. Although I do not have the funds to get a camera at the time, may I ask what camera/lens you use? Trying to do a lot of research on the best ones. Thank you!
Thank you, that is such a lovely thing to say. That is wonderful to hear, I love to inspire people to take photos. I have quite an expensive camera, the Nikon D800 and I have a few lenses, though the one I love the most or use the most is the 24-70mm. I guess it depends on what you are looking for, but there are quite a few mirrorless cameras these days that are a great starting point, a friend just got the Sony a6000 and she loves it. So there are a lot of options now. Good to get one that you can learn on, so one that you can control the aperture, shutter speed and ISO is good. Good luck.
I learn much from you and about you, Leanne. I love your inquisitive nature, and that you are always trying things out and exploring new ideas.
What a lovely comment Laurie, thank you for saying that. I do like to share what I know. I also like to try things, so good that you like that too. Thank you Laurie.
It’s a nice way of showing a series of images, making your story cohesive.
Yes, I think that too, it is good to show a group of images as well. Thank you.
Wow, Leanne, those three ‘books’ are beautifully put together – I love the book-style format that allows you to flip through the pages, as though you’re reading a book. And I like that you can add captions; can you add longer descriptions too, underneath the photos? I’ve never heard of Steller before. From your description, it sounds like fun to use though also quite a lot of work.
Thank you Reggie. I like the book style as well. You get a lot of options for adding text, different formats etc. I think it is limited, but what you get can be great. I think it is best to just try it out and see what you think.
Hello, Leanne! Excellent work as usual. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Noel, you’re welcome, good to hear you enjoyed it.
Love it! I got the app. Thanks for sharing.
That’s great Nicci, let me know if I can follow.
I did one little book in the middle of the night. You can follow for sure. I’ll follow back.
I found you and followed you.
Ditto! Love that you started with New York!
Yeah it seemed like a good starting point.
I like how you integrated it into your blog. I’m going to do that for my new blog.
Yeah it is pretty cool how it does that, you get some code to do it when you post a new one.
Ah OK. What theme did you use?
I don’t really remember, maybe the classic, they emailed me the code when I posted, I have that notification turned on.
Cool thanks
😀
It looks like an interesting application. Do you have to get the photos onto your phone/mobile device in order to load them into a story? I see no way of doing that from a desktop and I find that to be the most serious limitation of, for instance, Instagram as I don’t like working on my phone.
I do have an ISSUU account and have used it a bit. I only have one public document as I use it more for sharing draft documents in an unlisted mode (accessible with link only). For ISSUU you have to make a pdf and load that as a publication, but that is not too difficult to do in the Lightroom Book module. And it has the advantage of creating a document that is printer ready for other purposes. In fact, you can order a print directly on the viewing page.
Yes, it seems like you have to put them on your phone. I’ve been putting them into an email, leaving it in draft form and then downloading them onto my phone. Well there are often ways around working on the phone, like with Instagram, there are apps, that have website that you can use to do the post on your desktop and then it sends it to your phone. I use Later for Instagram.
I have heard of ISSUU, I will have to look it up. Thank you.
I like the look of this app. I don’t have the time to play with it just at the moment, but in a little while I’ll give it a go. Thank you for letting us know about it.
If you do Deborah let me know, I will take a look. Thank you and you’re welcome.
Interesting. Seems a bit labour-intensive, though. But Steller is Star-tleng! 🙂
Yes, it is a bit labour-intensive, which is why I think they tell you to only post once a week, thank you colonialist.
Ah another platform .. must check it out, I hadn’t heard of it. Cheers Leanne
Yes, new one, well it’s been around for a couple of years, but it is new to me, thank you Julie.
New to me too! 😃
😀 😀
This is fantastic! I had not yet learned of Stellar! Thank you!!!
Thank you Robyn, it is a nice site, let me know what you think Robyn.
Hi Leanne. It looks like you can put the text part of your story on the right. It’s a great concept, however, I don’t like using my cell phone to do anything but text, and talk! Editing on such a small scale frustrates me. Is it just used on the cell phone? Loved seeing your NY pictures again.
You can add pages for text, or put text with the photos Anne. It is a great idea, but yes you have to use your phone, it is a bit annoying that way.Thank you Anne, glad you enjoyed the revisit.
I’ve actually never heard of Stellar before, and no one I know has mentioned it to me apart from you. From the sounds of it, I like how you can organise your photos in a book in the order that you like. Agree with you like any social media that you want a following, you have to invest time in it, being active putting your stuff up and checking out what others are doing. I don’t know if I’ll get into this one but it is good to know it is out there and gives me another option to share my photos. So far I am still liking IG a lot for putting up my photos and seeing what everyone else is doing, and it is already taking up a chunk of my time in my spare time 😀 Hope you’ve been well, Leanne 🙂
I don’t know how long it has been around, but not for long, so not surprising that not many have heard of it. I like the book style too. I’m worried about IG, worried they are changing it too much and I am finding it keeps crashing and the ads on it are starting to drive me mad. Thank you Mabel.
It is annoying to hear that IG is being buggy for you. I haven’t had it crash on me and the ads don’t seem to bother me too much. But with IG, there are so many photos out there that after a while, everything starts to look the same. Always good to have another option and see what that takes you.
Yes, it is, I don’t know what it is, maybe just me. I am just noticing more and more ads, sometimes every 3 or 4 photos. Yes, that is true, I guess we become desensitized to it all.
great stories, Leanne. I was so enthusiastic, too, when I started Steller. But, after a short while the user interface for creating such stories became very frustrating for me. I started many more stories, than those you can see in my profile, now. Most of the started stories were deleted unfinished. Hope, you have more success than I had.
Yeah, I have to admit I can see problems with the interface, but I will see how it goes. Thank you Solaner, I guess time will tell.
Thanks for the tip. I just started following you. Very nice app.
I saw that, thank you.
I am going to have a look as it might suit what I want to do, more journalistic blogging.
I hope you like it Judi, thank you.
What a shame–I have just closed my steller account because I just didn’t have the time to use it as well as view others. I did like the concept but just too time consuming. Enjoy it!
That is a shame, it can be a bit time consuming, I will have to see how I go. I like it too, thank you Ardys.
Looks a bit like what I do with my blog posts (only not as expansive) and used to do with my SmugMug Galleries.
Unfortunately, my Samsung Note II still runs the 4.x version of Android and this app requires 5.x and up.
Oh, well . . . technology leaves me behind once again.
Oh well, that happens, the technology bit, I don’t know how this will turn out, but so far I like it. Thanks Disperser.
I really like how the photos are displayed. Nice find!
Thank you Chris, I like how it does them as well.