Awesome First Instagramers conference and more than 13,000 photos on Instagram

We covered it in earlier posts: the world’s first instagramers conference was always going to be fun-packed event. And so it turned out!

(See photos here)

(See Video Recap Here)

After the official opening by conference organiser, Gabriel Samper aka @kainxs, and the town’s mayor, I gave a talk about Instagram, its latest data and the acquisition by Facebook.

Aurora Michavila @auroramichavila, one of the most followed Spanish Instagramers talked about Instagram as a marketing platform and then the morning followed with a series of great talks.

Oscar @rak357 presented some inspiring photos by his father, Ramón Massats, winner of Spain’s National Photography Prize; Luis Rodríguez @luison talked us through their series of “reflections” photos; and Santi Tur @atfunk gave a cool session about some of our partner @olloclip‘s lens and other iphone accessories. The morning’s session closed with a fascinating talk by Mayka Navarro @maykita about her iPhone photography while in Afghanistan as a photojournalist.

Lunchtime saw the official opening of the conference exhibition at the Vista Alegre gallery, which included work by some of IG’s leading photographers from around the world, then lunch at the local sailing club. The afternoon was the turn of the presenters from outside Spain. Holland’s Eelco Roos @croyable and Gabriel Samper @kainxs talked about their “small men” (#hombrecitos) series of photos.

Giacomo Por @saturnionfarandola from Naples (via his interpreter @Ibiza13) gave a thought-provoking speech about his black and white portraits. Thomas Kakareko @Thomas_k from Berlin (asisted by Carolina de Britos @sushidetortilla )then gave us some hints and tips about street photography, and we ended the day with a fascinating presentation of some advanced editing techniques with live demonstrations by Richard Gray @rugfoot, one of the world’s few professional teachers of photography with the iphone.

In true Spanish style there was a party that started at 11pm with the most enormous gin and tonics generously supplied by our gin partner. Remarkably, most of the participants made it for the start of the photowalk around Torrevieja on Sunday morning. They were possibly motivated by some really great prizes for the best photos, which were presented just before the conference was officially closed. In total, over 13,000 photos were tagged with #torrevieja2012 during the two months before the event.

Amazing press coverage

The event really caught the imagination of a lot of observers, in a lot of online blogs but also in the traditional media. It was featured in Sunday’s national daily El Mundo and was even the last story on the national TV news on the same day!

I’d personally like to give a big thanks for all the work of Gabriel’s team @kainxs and specially Clara Soler @Clara_Soler , to the Torrevieja local authorities for their support, to Clara Montesinos @claramon (featured in the El Mundo photo here) for her excellent coms work @Maykita aka @MaykaNavarro (on Twitter) in getting the conference so much coverage and for her brilliant MC work during the conference, to all the presenters, to the @Fie_10 artists in the exhibition and to all those amazing instagramers who came from Spain and abroad!