FocalShare Race Photos: There’s an App for That
Whether you’re running your first 5K, are a seasoned triathlete, or have been training for a multi-day charity bike ride for months, every race you do is a story. And that story is illustrated by your race photo. Sometimes it’s the drama of dedicating ALL of your energy to the course. Sometimes it’s the sheer triumph of finishing. Often it’s a commemoration of the freedom that comes from getting out there and living life to the fullest. In the end, is there anything better than sharing that story with your friends, family, and loved ones so they can experience the joy of race day?
That’s why we offer FocalShare™ free digital race photos, which are provided by many of the event clients we serve. FocalShare events include free digital downloads of your photos. As photographers, we view your ability to easily access and share your photos as critical. So for the past eight months, we’ve been working on a brand-new solution: the FocalShare™ iOS app.
“A large proportion of participants in races we serve are accessing their FocalShare photos on iOS devices,” says Clint Thayer, co-founder of Focal Flame Photography. “Developing an app to empower racers to easily find and share their images right from their devices made sense to us, both as technophiles and photographers. We’re incredibly excited to offer the FocalShare app.”
To install the app, click here or search the App Store on your device for Focal Flame or FocalShare. The app is free; just tap to download.
Once you install the app, you’ll be able to access photos from recent FocalShare events. Click on individual galleries to explore, or enter your bib number to find your photos.
After you find your photo, click on the “download” icon (which looks like a box with an arrow pointing upward) at the top right of the screen to view options for using your FocalShare photo. If you have the Facebook or Twitter app installed on your device, you can choose to share to those platforms with a single click. Otherwise you can choose to send your FocalShare image as a text message, in an email, save it to your device, and more.
Perhaps you want to search for all photos of yourself, but you’ve forgotten your bib number. Not a problem: if you find one image of yourself in an event gallery, when you select that image, you’ll see “Search for bib XXXX” at the bottom of the image. The app is smart enough to detect all bibs numbers in a photo. Click the text to conduct a search for all images from the gallery with the same bib number.
What if you want to select and share multiple images? Also not a problem: in the gallery of interest, click “Select” on the upper right corner, then tap each photo you want to share. (When they’re selected, you’ll see a blue check mark next to the image.) Then tap on the “download” icon on the upper left corner of the screen to proceed.
The FocalShare app was developed by a fellow racer, Glenda Adams of Maverick Software. “As an iOS app developer, I was intrigued by the technological possibilities of how FocalShare race photos could be used. As a runner myself, I knew how helpful it would be to have one-click access to my photos so I could show them to friends and family. Working on this app was both intellectually fulfilling, and really meaningful to me as a runner. I hope you enjoy it!”
Additional resources:
FAQs about the FocalShare™ iOS App
Description – FocalShare™ iOS App