Google+ has been a great place for photographers since the start

May 23, 2012 18:41 GMT  ·  By

Google+ has always had a couple of things for it, Hangouts and photos. They're not big, but they're something. Google+ debuted with a much better photo section than Facebook's and the giant social network has rolled out several updates since Google+ came out to catch up.

Even so, plenty of professional and amateur photographers alike, looking for a new place outside of Flickr, have come to rely on Google+ to publish their photos and make them available to the world.

And Google wasn't long to take advantage of the attention photographers were paying to Google+. Indeed, photography has been very well catered to.

Google just closed its "Photography Prize" which challenged students to come up with the best photos they could and publish them on Google+ for a chance to win a trip with a professional photographer guide as well as have their photos exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Google+ Photographers Conference gathered the most popular and the most enthusiastic photographers on Google+.

Of course, all of this would mean nothing if Google+ wasn't a great product for photographers. Luckily that's no the case, the site itself has been seeing some worthwhile improvements and the lightbox viewer is still great, though Facebook's is just as good now.

But recently, Google also debuted an updated iPhone app which pays a lot more attention to photos. They now take up the entire screen and clearly take the center stage in any post that has a photo attached.

Google plans to introduce an updated app for Android users as well which will come with the same design changes. The best photo apps out there took a similar approach, Instagram to name one. Google providing a Google+ app that's just as good at exposing photos as the dedicated ones, is notable.