Forum Debate: Is It All About Instagram?
POSTED ON Wednesday, 6 February 2013 AT 12:23 \\

One of the forums started for this unit was to do with the infamous app, Instagram. It seems that there are conflicting opinions regarding the app where you crop, edit and share your images with friends and followers.  It came to attention in the debate that it aggrovates some that people claim to call themselves photographers purely by using the app that seems to make pretty much any picture look good with the use of a filter or two. However, in my experience of the app, I haven't come across anyone that uses it to boast that they are a successful photographer when all they do is take a snap on their iPhone. I see that instagram is just an app, there for fun. It's a fast and easy way to connect through pictures. As one person mentioned on the forum "Besides, if you choose to display your photographic work on there then that's your choice, I personally don't have anything against people doing this but, let's be honest, it's a poor way to go about doing it." Established or passionate photographers are unlikely to post their work on Instagram, but there is nothing wrong with using it for fun. At the end of the day it's just an app, a boredom buster.

Another comment I agree with was this: "I am sure that when the photographic method was accomplished, traditional artists all around the world cried in outrage." The art world prior to photography, and even artists working now often put down photography and claim that it isn't an artform, that anyone can merely push a button and make an image. Photographers who are against Instagram are behaving in a similar manner, anyone can apply a set of ready to use filters to make an image look presentable. 

I personally use Instagram to communicate visually amoungst the social networking sphere, share something from my day to day life, much like you would tweet or write a Facebook status. I would never use Instagram to take images for a professional reason or for a portfolio. Instagram like all these things, is just a fad that in years to come will be superceded by something new. Just like in Photography, there is a craze amongst young 'hipsters' to use Lomos, cheap film cameras that let the light leak in and create an unpredictable colours or damage to the image or even using a fish eye lens to capture something 'alternative' and 'individual' because they are simply too cool for digital cameras now. It's all simply a phase that needs to be taken lightly, very few people who use Instagram will get significantly acknowledged for their photos on there in comparison to the millions that have the app so there is no need to be concerned that the future of Photography lies solely in an iPhone. 

Just take it lightly and enjoy it, and don't knock it until you've tried it.

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