Instagram: Rad or fad?
If you’re in or around the social media sphere, chances are, you’ve noticed photos being posted from a website called “Instagram“.
Instagram, as described by the app maker, is “a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures.”
With the free Instagram iPhone app, you can quickly and easily shoot and transform your photos, using one of the 11 built-in filters, giving your snaps a vintage look and feel, reminiscent to the days of toy cameras and Polaroid photography.
In addition to photo-taking, you can share your shots with a community of Instagram fanatics, connecting with friends, posting photos to your social networks and leaving comments on shots you think deserve them. Instagram also allows you to geo-tag your shots and tap the Foursquare API to check in to your location, bringing the photo-sharing experience full circle.
I’ve been playing with the app for the past two weeks, and I’m hooked!
Being a photographer, I tend to shoot photos of practically every meal, things I pass during the day or at work for tweeting promotions and communication purposes. Before Instagram, I’d use Twitpic to attach photos to my tweets, which works, but doesn’t have much community appeal (the app has a lot to do with this) and it does essentially the same thing in a fun and creative way.
While most users will dig the Instagram concept, there are many purists, or pure fad haters out there who feel the app is a waste of time and brings photo “crapification” to the mainstream.
I started getting in to photography in the late ’90s, when Photoshop was only a few versions old and digital photography was limited to 640×480 resolutions and writing to floppy disks (bleh!). Being a good photographer required a good eye, and we could rely less on filters and post production to properly expose a shot or get the colors right in the camera.
On one hand, I can appreciate the purists who shun heavy post-production techniques, but at the same time, can appreciate a good photo whether it was untouched or run through an Instagram filter.
Bottom line is, I feel Instagram is taking a step forward in photo sharing and revolutizing the “twitpic” as we know it. It’s the Vimeo of photo-sharing services and I feel can only improve from here. You don’t always have to apply a filter to your photo and it integrates with social networks seamlessly. It’s beautifully designed, easy to use and most of all, it’s fun!
So what’s your take? Have you tried Instagram yet? Do you think it’s rad or is it just another fly-by-night fad? Post your thoughts!
Here are a few of my favorite Instagrams:
