Back in June, I met with British contemporary black and white photographer, Alan Schaller at Leica’s 100th Anniversary event in Wetzlar. He told me about an app that he was launching for photographers; one that has an intuitive interface, is effortless to use, and is ultimately inspiring.
This is Irys — a social media app for the photography community that lets users connect with other like-minded photographers, and be discovered as well. The Irys team calls it, “an ecosystem with an upcoming in-house magazine, book publishing house, agency and gallery network”.
FEATURES
Irys has several features that are quite different from popular social media apps such as Instagram; to begin with, there’s no visible follower count, so the focus is back on quality rather than numbers. Also, the app doesn’t reward frequency so you can post when you like and not be pressured to perform for your engagement numbers.
Photos can be uploaded in high resolution (up to 30MB, on to be 50MB), in all aspect ratios, and they can’t be downloaded by others. The images will also display key camera details when enabled (EXIF data), and they can be organised into “Collections” for better presentation.
Other features include “Groups”, which can be created to manage communities, “Connect” (this connects the user with peers who share similar interests), and Challenges and Competitions so users on the app stay engaged.
MEMBERSHIP
It will be free to join as a member of Irys, but of course if you want to support the team and get premium features, subscriptions will be available at S$8.98/month or S$89.98/year (16% off).
NYLON is told that the app will launch sometime in September 2025, and you can get on the waitlist on their website now to be one of the first to sign up.
