South by Southwest is a technology conference, music and film festival that brings some of the most creative people in each industry together in Austin, Texas. The following is a guide to finding Instagram at SXSX 2012!

Interactive Panels SXSW badge-holders can hear Instagram team members speak on the following panels:

• Is Our Photo-Madness Creating Mediocrity or Magic?
• Design and the Mobile Startup
• On the Internet, Everyone Knows You’re a Dog

InstaMeet: Photowalk This event is open to everyone, even if you aren’t attending SXSW!

• Sunday, March 11 @ 1:30 PM: Join the Instagram team for Austin’s Worldwide InstaMeet! Starting point is at the northeast corner of 6th & Sabine Streets, rain or shine.

Instagram Sightings at SXSW The following locations will be incorporating your Instagram photographs into their events:

• #FEED 
• CNN iReport
• Green Label Sound SXSW Showcase 
• The FADER FORT Presented by Converse  
• dubFrequency

Performances from bands on Instagram These Instagramming bands will have shows during SXSW:

• RAC - @RAC
• Wallpaper - @wallpaper
• The Shins - @theshins

We’re looking forward to meeting as many of you as we can while we’re in Austin, and can’t wait to see your photos tagged with #instameet from this weekend’s Worldwide InstaMeet!

Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes & hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @instagram and look for a photo from her announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.

This weekend’s theme was #farawaypeople, which asked participants to capture candid or posed photographs of people from a distance. Every Monday we feature some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest on Instagram here.

Photos by sharonkim_, skiescolliiide, denbrooks, swiss_coco, katieanndenis, escapistsalley, julezw, batenoyer, tspear, jeijay, filipal & patuci.

Good news! Instagram v2.2 is now available in the App Store! Here’s what’s new:

Faster Camera

We’ve made it faster than ever for you to snap + share photos on Instagram.

Sharing Support for ミクシィ/ Mixi and 新浪微博 / Weibo (Japan & China)

We now support sharing to Mixi and Weibo, two popular social networks in Japan and China, respectively. If you have a Mixi or Weibo account, you can link the account to Instagram by tapping Profile > Edit Sharing Settings > Mixi / Weibo.

• Learn more about connecting + sharing photos to ミクシィ/ Mixi.
• Learn more about connecting + sharing photos to 新浪微博 / Weibo.

Change Profile Photo from Profile Page

You can now change your profile photo from your profile page — just tap the gear icon in the top right corner.

Bug Fixes

This version fixes a bug that caused filters to not apply in some cases when using Lux, as well as a bug that sometimes caused photos to not save to your photo library.

Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes & hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @jayzombie and look for a photo from her announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.

This weekend’s theme was #tunnelvisions, which asked participants to search for tunnels to photograph. Every Monday we feature some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest on Instagram here.

Photos by yalinbuyukdora, melliemelg, melanierin, frau_hecht, hannaeffie, miss_jess, wesq, stevecarter, skipintro, kasyah, nwittwer & kbetti.

Instagram Tips is a series that features Instagram-related pro-tips for both novice and expert users alike!  Check out the Support Center, help.instagram.com, for more tips & help for Instagram.

The newest filter available in Instagram v2.1, Sierra, has been a wonderful addition to our filter family. With a subtle pink tone and a wonderful big border, this filter looks fantastic with most subjects — from landscapes, architecture and portraits (both pets and people) to nature macros and even #fromwhereistand photographs!

While Sierra can be applied to many different types of photographs, we’ve found that it can make scenes that lack contrast or an even exposure appear more desaturated or washed out. If that isn’t an intended photographic style, you can simply apply Lux, our newest photo editing tool, to bring back some of that pop to the scene!

Take a look at these beautiful photographs that have used this new filter, and be sure to tag any of your own Sierra photos with #sierra.

Photos by matescho, yashualangeman, elem, candykay, eithnesusan & meerkatwoman.

Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes & hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @jayzombie and look for a photo from her announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.

This weekend’s theme was #tinyhorizon, which asked participants to pull back their focus and capture a big sky with a small horizon line. Every Monday we feature some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest on Instagram here.

Photos by timothyschenck, angeline716, clintus, shauna610, ashleycakesomara, diyosacarter, darmix87, jackiejaszka, cyrenakh, kkuiper, analeko & hiimanet.

With almost 200 communities participating in the upcoming Worldwide InstaMeet, we wanted to provide some photography tips to help you make your city’s photowalk unique!

Subjects

Select a subject that is easily discoverable on your photowalk’s route. Can you plan the walk so you pass only tall buildings? Are you able to find multiple windows with hand-painted letters? Perhaps there’s a lot of street art in your city! Pre-planning your walk, picking up on common subjects, then providing that subject as a theme will challenge photowalk participants to see subjects that may otherwise go unnoticed!

Filters

Utilize only one filter on every shared photograph. While this can be a huge challenge, having a visually cohesive theme will result in a beautiful hashtag pool for your city’s photowalk, as well as your personal photo feed. Try asking participants to utilize only the new Sierra filter with a border, then share any obstacles you come across as a result while you walk along!

Props

Photograph the same prop interacting with multiple scenes. Ask participants to bring similarly themed props to the photowalk, like vinyl toys or fake moustaches, and provide them with unique situations that they should photograph their props in. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see a photowalk hashtag filled with mini toy dinosaurs taking over a city?! The only way to answer that question is with an all caps “YES!”.

These ideas aren’t just great for creating a fun and interesting photowalk - they can also be applied to your own photography! Challenge yourself to stick to one (or several) of these themes for an entire month. Not only will your Instagram profile look beautiful, but you’ll likely learn a thing or two about photography in the process!

InstaMeet banner image provided by @lauralawson.

Instagram Tips is a series that features Instagram-related pro-tips for both novice and expert users alike!  Check out the Support Center, help.instagram.com, for more tips & help for Instagram.

If you missed the news, Instagram v2.1 is out and we’ve introduced a new feature called Lux. With a single tap, photos that are underexposed or lack contrast are instantly transformed. We’ve found that Lux is especially perfect for landscapes & cityscapes. Check out the example photos below to get a better idea of when Lux works best!

An underexposed iPhone photo of a building due to poor lighting from shade is transformed into a lovely detailed shot. Lux balances the exposure, provides much needed brightness, and the image really comes to life.

This already beautiful photo is significantly improved with Lux. The colors become brighter, details in the sign and tower are brought out, and the contrast in the sky makes the clouds pop.

The original image is your standard mobile phone photo - decent exposure, good color, and plenty of detail. But with the addition of Lux the colors become more vibrant and you begin to notice details that weren’t visible before. Lux truly transforms your photos …

… and with the addition of a filter, they can become even more beautiful!

Be sure to tag any of your photos that utilize this new feature with #lux in order to share your photos’ stunning enhancements!

Good news! Instagram v2.1 is now available in the App Store! Here’s what’s new:

New Feature: Lux

We’ve given you a new way to instantly transform the look and feel of your photos. In just one tap, Lux works its magic by making your photos more vibrant and bringing out details you couldn’t see before. Use it with a filter or without.

New Filter: Sierra

We’ve added a new filter!

Simplified + Improved UI

We’ve simplified the look of Instagram. The improved header and menu buttons in this release are the first steps towards making it easier to understand and interact with our app.

Tappable Notifications

Now, when you tap on an Instagram notification in the iOS Notification Center, you’re brought directly to the relevant photo, comment or user profile page in the app.

This past week Europe was hit hard with extremely cold temperatures reaching as low as 35 degrees Celsius below zero! As seen in images shared with Instagram places like France, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands were hit hardest with the icy conditions.

With weather this harsh, we hope those affected by the cold manage to stay safe & warm!