Visual Supply Company (VSCO), the latest social media app, has captured the Convent of the Sacred Heart community with the click of a camera.
VSCO is a photography application in which users can create an account and upload, take, edit, filter, and share their photographs with other VSCO users and on other social media sites.

Although many students compare the app to other popular social networks, including Instagram and Tumblr, co-founders Mr. Greg Lutze and Mr. Joel Flory created the app VSCO Cam in May 2012 to benefit professional photographers and graphic designers.
A key difference between Instagram and VSCO is the lack of social interaction between users. Without the ability to like or comment on posts, Mr. Lutze and Mr. Flory hope the focus of VSCO will primarily be on the photography.
“We’re not interested in creating another social network. We wanted to create a platform that honored the art our users created without likes and comments. They are utilizing Instagram for what it’s great at: connecting. It’s a great communication tool, and VSCO is focused on photography tools,” VSCO co-founder Mr. Flory said, according to theverge.com.
The co-founders met when Mr. Flory came across Mr. Lutze’s design work for his favorite band, Jimmy Eat World. Mr. Flory contacted Mr. Lutze in hopes that he would make the brand for his father’s construction business. Mr. Lutze and Mr. Flory eventually teamed up and started a business creating WordPress site templates for photographers in March 2011, according to fastcompany.com.
With such great success through WordPress, the duo wanted to extend their revenue and create tools that they would actually use as photographers by creating VSCO Cam.
Although originally created for professional photographers, the app had over a million downloads in the first week, extending past the intended audience, according to fastcompany.com.
Following VSCO’s description, “[b]ecause beautiful imagery trumps social clout, the number of followers, comments, and likes are absent from the platform,” Mr. Lutze states that users look to make the photos real, rather than appealing like on other social media sites, according to vsco.com.
VSCO allows users to be the sole creator of their photos. Users capture a photo, and then have the ability to adjust the lighting and composition “without losing the image’s authenticity to editing or filters,” William Wilkinson, a photography enthusiast and designer at software studio MetaLab said, according to theverge.com.
Using film stocks that photographers still use worldwide, like Kodak Porta, users replicate the tones and color rendition to enhance the mobile photo.
Sacred Heart junior and student in Advanced Portfolio Lizzie Kupersmith spends time working on her VSCO grid to expand her photography skills.

“I add the photo, and then I look through the many filters that VSCO offers. I then have the ability to play around with the contrast and exposure to bring out the picture’s good qualities, a skill that we spend a lot of time in photography class trying to master. VSCO helps me experiment with these different tools that can upgrade and intensify the photo that real photographers use, and allows me to try them out before I go and print some of the pictures for Advanced Portfolio,” Lizzie said.
Lizzie enjoys using VSCO for artistic expression because of the contrast to other social media networks. She stated that the sole function of this app is for amateur and professional photographers to test their photos and share their art with other users, without the pressure of obtaining likes or followers.
“I like how VSCO is not like other social media sites where it is about who has more followers or likes. I do not know who is even following me. I just post my pictures and overall get to see the progression of my photography. And then I can use other people’s VSCO pages to get inspiration on how I can improve my photography skills. I can post pictures of food, landscape or people. VSCO allows the sharing of any type of photo, and offers photographers an opportunity to experiment with any picture they want,” Lizzie said.
– Kristen Davis, Sports & Health Editor