moju

If a picture says a thousand words, what happens when you chain a bunch of pictures together?

That’s the question that Moju, a free app for the iPhone, is trying to answer. The app lets users take multiple pictures and then stitch them all together into a single scene that people can view in sequence by tilting their iPhone to the left and right.

If I was to oversimplify Moju’s approach, it would be “Vine for still photos.” Here’s a video that shows how it works:

Shooting the photos for a single Moju is fairly straightforward. Users can take individual exposures one at a time, or hold down the app’s shutter button to take a burst of photos. Once they have a set of photos taken, they can perform some light edits, and apply a filter to the entire Moju.

The app features a built-in social network (don’t they all?) that allows people worldwide to see Mojus that other people post. Users can choose whether or not they want to share their photos with the world, or post them privately. Either way, they’ll be able to share the Mojus with their friends on Facebook or Twitter, and can get a link to share with people who aren’t on those social networks.

Overall, it’s a well-designed, well-executed app that makes it easy for people to create delightful little scenes. While my life hasn’t been nearly eventful enough to produce a breathtaking Moju, I’ve seen a number of great shots show up in the public timeline, including several panoramic views of wilderness areas.

That said, I think Moju’s greatest shortcoming is that it doesn’t do enough to make me want to reach for it when I want to take a photo or video. The app is neat, but it’s limited, and I worry that it’s too easy to forget when I just want to take a picture of something and be done with it.

Composing a Moju, in my experience, takes more time than shooting a Vine or taking an image and uploading it to Instagram. What’s more, it’s even harder to do it well. The resulting product can definitely be worth the effort, but it requires time that photographers sometimes don’t have when they are looking to snap a quick pic.

Moju is available as a free app on the iOS App Store.

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