What is Hink?

We’ve all been there.
You took some great shots of people doing awesome things. And now they want you to send them your footage. This always gets complicated and time consuming. We resort to different solutions, and all the work is on you, the photographer. You need to agree on which platform, people need to set up accounts, create albums and invite users or send messages to specific individuals. Not to mention the whole selection process of which shots to send.

Hink is an app to massively simplify the life for anyone who likes to take photos or video.
Our target is to reduce the time consuming task of sharing for all photographers by 90%. And by photographers we mean You, whether you have a smartphone, an advanced digital camera, an action camera or even a drone.
If you have a shot worth sharing, just drop it in the app.

For event organizers, Hink is more than a photo sharing app, it’s a way to crowdsource content for your organization’s social media feed, website, and more. When people participate in your event and upload photos to the app, images are tagged with a date and location and stored in a searchable interface. Even better, images and videos are in full-resolution.

How does it work?

An example:
John takes a bunch of photos of Lisa when she is kitesurfing. John then shares that to Hink. No invites or albums.
When Lisa is done kitesurfing, she opens up Hink, and zooms in on the location where she was kitesurfing and selects the date. And there it is. All the photos John took, and in full resolution. Lisa then downloads the ones she wants.

Who is Hink for?

Anyone who likes to massively simplify their photo sharing. This can be professional photographers, hobby photographers or anyone who wishes to share their footage with their subjects or others. We start with public areas and people doing awesome things. As we haven’t released our privacy levels yet, where you can control who can see what, we don’t suggest you share footage that those people don’t want to have public. Hence our focus on extreme sports in public places. For now.

The app is also for those who like to make other happy by sharing photos of them, even if they don’t even know them or have their contact details! This can be an athlete at a race, players at a basketball game or anyone you believe would value high quality shots and video of themselves. Pay it forward!

How can Hink help my Instagram account?

Say that you want content for your social media accounts such as Instagram. Now anyone who has taken relevant photos or videos and shared them on Hink, can be used to share on your Instagram account. Instead of you having to take and post all images, Now pick and choose from everyone sharing around you to use for your social media feeds. For example, say that you are the organiser a mountain bike race and the spectators shared shots on Hink. Now you can use these to promote the race on all your social feeds. No need to take all the shots yourself!

Can Hink be used by news publishers?

While we believe the app is perfect for location specific sharing in high quality and almost real time, if you wish to use any content on Hink for commercial purposes, you need to contact Support@hink.me for a specific release of that content. This is also the same for any commercial use such as stock photos. We are more than happy to accommodate such requests.

I have a digital camera, where do I upload that?

The fastest way is to upload from your smartphone. So many people send them to their phone first and then share them from there.
We do have a beta version of our web uploader. If you would like access to the web uploader in beta, please click here. On our web uploader, you can both set time and location at the point of uploading, even if you didn’t have location on the original footage.

I can’t upload and there is a red x on the upload view on my images?

This is likely because you don’t have location turned on in the camera app on your phone.
It is simple to turn this on to make sure your shots are all placed automatically in the rights spot.

For iPhones, click here to see how to turn this feature on as well as adding location to images without location turned on.

For android phones, click here to see how to turn on location in your camera.

You can also add location to your android photos in the photo album:

1. On your Android phone or tablet, open Google Photos .

2. Open the photo or video.

3. Tap More Add a location .

   • Add or select a location from your recent locations.

I downloaded some photos but they look like they are low resolution?

This can be because of two reasons.
The first and most common is that the person who took the photo used a lower resolution photo or cropped the photo before uploading.
The second is just a lag and if you wait a minute, it should be fine. The reason for this is that when downloading on your iPhone, it immediately uploads it to your photo album, but it takes a little while for the download and image processing the be completed so if you are too eager to look at the photo, it might look blurrier than you want. This is more apparent in older phones and possibly lower data speeds. Good news is just wait a minute or so.

Who can see my photos?

Anyone who has the app and a Hink account. In the future, we will add solutions for privacy levels and events.

Why can't I see my friends’ photos?

Perhaps the date range selected was incorrect when zooming in on a location. If the date is correct, there is a possibility that the original information on the footage had an incorrect time, date or location. Please check with the person who uploaded the footage.

Can I see all the photos from the whole world?

Yes, But not all at once. You will need to zoom in slightly at an area before you can use the grid view and get everything as a photo grid based on the date range selected.

I'd like to only share with only my friends who were there, how do I do that?

Stay tuned! We are working on this and will have this solution in a future release.

I'd Like to only share with my family/spouse?

Stay tuned! We are working on this and will have this solution in a future release.

I don't want anyone to see my photos?

Stay tuned! We are working on this and will have this solution in a future release.

Can I create an album from a trip? even if some people weren't there or had the app?

Stay tuned! We are working on this and will have this solution in a future release.

I'm a professional photographer and want to invite people to see their photos, and can I charge for my photos?

Just tell them that their photos are on Hink. We currently don’t have an invite link or deep link to send, and instead the viewer has to choose the date and the map location themselves. Also, the charging function is currently not available yet. We are working in this and hope to have this ready soon!

How do I remove my own photos or videos?

For your own photos, go into your “uploads” on the “my stuff” page", there you can select and delete photos. You can also delete directly from the large image page which you get to from the Grid view. Just tap the three dots on the top right.

How long are the photos available for?

Currently, all photos will stay until we or a user deletes them. Or if a photo is reported. We may change this in the future.

How do I know how many people can see my photos on the app (i.e. have access to them?)?

Right now anyone with a Hink account will be able to see all photos around the world. In the future, we will launch privacy levels allowing you to see which accounts have access.

When I click on the Map view, are the photos the same ones as the Grid view, or how does that work?

Yes, as close to the map view as possible, sorted in chronological order with newest photos on top.

Can any one see where I was based on my location?

Nobody can see any information about other users location. However, every photo or video has information on when and where and by whom it was taken. We don’t tag people in photos or videos.

I want to have a photo taken down, how do I do that?

In the large image view, there are three dots on the top right. Just click report photo/video, and our content review team will take care of it. If it is a violation of our policies, we may also restrict the user that uploaded the content, temporarily or permanently. In the same way, you can also click to report a user who has uploaded content in violation of our policies.

Does leaving the app on with location consume data on my data plan?

No.

Why is the app asking for location

To simplify finding the photos and videos you like.

Can i pick any date range?

Currently yes, but we may restrict this in the future. We may also add more granularity down to times during the day such as hours and minutes.

When will private photos be available?

We are working on this, and will let our users know as soon as we have it.

Will you have direct messages so I can send to one person only?

Yes, we are working on this, and will let our users know as soon as we have this.

I am a marathon event organiser, can I use Hink for footage and sharing and selling images to the runners?

Yes! Contact support@hink.me to schedule a call and we can make it happen for your event. We aim to have a more automated service for this in the future.

Does it work for wedding photos?

We are working on a specific solution for weddings. Stay tuned.

Who and what is Hink not for?

As all photos and videos are currently public, please avoid sharing media from private homes, workplaces, bars and restaurants. In essence, avoid sharing anything that you think the subjects of the photos or the owners of the properties would object to have public.
However, we will add privacy features to Hink. Then we hope we can give you the greatest user experience in sharing private photos with only those you want, as much as you like!

What about copyright?

Much like all content related services such as social media, we have similar terms and conditions. This means that if you upload images or video to Hink, you allow others to use those for private purposes. However, if someone wishes to use the content for commercial purposes, they will need an approval by us or the content contributor.

Why is it called Hink?

Why not?

Actually, we couldn’t come up with a better name. It also means bucket in Swedish. And we feel this is a good way to describe what the app does. Drop your shots into the bucket and let people find the footage they want.

Think before you Hink!

When you share photos and videos of others publicly, be sure to only share what you think they would be happy with. If you’re not sure, just ask them. Some great reading about taking photos in public can be found here.