In Defense of Instagram
[Quick background for those handful of you not using a smartphone: instagram is a mobile application that creates photography filters that makes your pictures look old-timey, overexposed, grainy, etc. and makes them easy to share with other users. It’s simple. Simple but brilliant.]
People I know have strong feelings about instagram. Either they love it and use it constantly, or they dismiss it as some bullshit for people who fancy themselves sophisticated photographers. It can get pretty insufferable at times- because it’s so easy to post pictures, most people post quick snapshots of food, objects, signs, that are supposed to signify something about their life; it’s often never just a picture. It often contains meals people are about to eat or some sort of lone object that the viewer is supposed to decipher as some sort of deeper indication of the psyche of the user. The pilled mug of coffee now represents the spillage of human suffering.
Am I Not a Table?
Until last week, instagram was only available to iPhone users, making them more of a (self-proclaimed) elitist consumer than need be. Last week, the application became available for all Android users. iPhone users balked at all the mere plebes flocking to what was once exclusive to just them. I may also be exaggerating this a bit (I’m Team Android).
Pretty food is pretty.
I had always been one to mock the faux-artsy pictures produced by instagram, but now that I finally have access to it I kinda love it. I want to take more pictures of everything around me to see what sort of filters will look like, to see it in a different light. And hey, my pictures DO seem more artistic! Maybe I have some talent as a photographer! Here are my first instagram shots from the past few days. Am I doing it right?
This is a sad, sad star amid a galaxy of hundreds of souls. just kidding, it’s a cardboard star decoration at an office party!
I’m watching a documentary called The Hollywood Complex at home on my tv. Wouldn’t it show some irony if I showed the connection between Hollywood and my Andy Warhol-inspired Marilyn Monroe images on my wall? The irony!
My friend Mitch makes puppets. That’s pretty quirky, right?
This is the view from my friend’s house in the Oakland Hills. Notice the hue of the picture makes it look old and weathered. As if to indicate that the view from the Hills to the Flats has been one contemplated throughout time.
This is not my dog. But people usually respond well to pictures of animals.
An ironic wall hanging in a a friends house…or is it? I chose a black and white filter as if this were a relic from the struggles of the 1950s housewife.
Follow my continuing depictions of a modern day Americana on my twitter. oh, and let me know what your favorite Instagram filters are.
All photos from http://blog.instagram.com/ and my personal account
