Is Instagram taking over?

Instagram is a very popular medium to display photographs and can also create aesthetically pleasing images, even within it's limited filters. 
But is it taking over the commercial photography industry.

Traditional Photographers Should Be Horrified By The Cover Of Today's New York Times

Sports photographer Nick Laham recently shot some beautiful portraits of the New York Yankees baseball team.

The photos came out great, but what's surprising is that Laham took the photos with his iPhone, and "edited" them solely through Instagram. 

Laham didn't need to use any fancy editing software like Photoshop to enhance the images. Instead, Instagram worked just fine. 

Today, The New York Times featured Laham's photo of baseball player Alex Rodriguez front and center on the cover. Getty has even licensed Laham's Instagram photos on its site, suggesting that both the iPhone and Instagram are entirely suitable tools for photographers.

This is a problem for traditional photography. It used to be that you needed darkroom skills to make your photos look great. Then when things switched to digital, you at least needed to be able to make your way around Photoshop.

Now Instagram handles it all, and it looks great for editorial purposes. There's still going to be a challenge getting the great shots, and an iPhone can't handle a lot of circumstances. But the skills needed to make beautiful shots that are worthy of the cover of a newspaper continue to diminish rapidly.

(Article and image available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/photographers-using-instagram-2013-3)

Hipstamatic: More for the Photographer than Instagram??

"With the swipe of a finger, change your lens, flash and film, all of which add a unique touch to your photo." 

(Available at: http://hipstamatic.com/)

(Image available at: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/hipstamatic-gentrifies-iphone-camera/)

Hipstamatic seems to be more for the Photographer than Instagram because you are able to manipulate the image more. Compared to the 20 or so filters you can use on Instagram, with the mixture of films, flashes and gels, Hipstamatic can help you create a wider range of images. 

(Image available at: http://www.myglasseye.net/news/hipstamatic-review/)


"Hipstamatic is a photography company aiming to inspire the world to live more beautifully and creatively." 
(Available at: http://hipstamatic.com/about/)

Nokia Moments

"Most of us are similarly, hopelessly nostalgic. We turn everyday events into "Kodak moments" -- and we spend hours filing, cataloguing, and scrap-booking them all."

(Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/50517/mobile-nokia-moments)

Nokia wanted to be the Kodak of the digital age. Nokia introduced a program called Lifeblog which  "gathers the mishmash of life -- all the text messages, images, and video that can be captured on a cell phone -- then organizes them into a digital diary. (ibid)

(Image available at: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Nokia-Lifeblog/1109232084/1)

Has Instagram created more photographers?

It's debatable whether Instagram can be classed as Photography or not. I suppose some "professional" photographers will be against the app as it kind of creates a short cut way of producing visually appealing images. It's very easy to see both sides of the argument when it comes to this idea that Instagram is Photography, it just completely depends who is taking the image and how it is manipulated. 

These images are categorised as some of the top 12 images on Instagram. 

(Images available at: http://mashable.com/2012/03/04/best-instagram-photos/)  

Is Instagram the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Photography?

(Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBw589H2XwI)

Is Instagram overused??

There is a lot of controversy today about Instagram and it's users. Some people feel that some "Instagramers" overuse the site and it's tools, such as it's filters and frames. Instagram sometimes seems to be a place to document what you eat more than anything else. Making your food look more appealing by using certain filters.

(Own image)

Look at this Instagram (Nickleback Parody)

(Original video available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn-dD-QKYN4)

WHY INSTAGRAM SUCKS!

(Avaiable at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTHqTY9Tadw)

The Kodak Moment

"A Kodak Moment: a rare, one-time moment that is captured by a picture, or should have been capture by a picture."  

Over the years the use of film and film photography has declined. The rapid increase of mobile phones, and those with decent cameras, has pushed aside the film camera and very much diminished the idea of 1 off images, the Kodak moment. Film photographs are seen as more precious than any other form of images. They are single images that capture a certain time that are irreplaceable and a one off. "Digital photography took off and Kodak wasn't ready for it. From the late 90s until about 2008 (which is also when camera phones became mainstream), the digital still camera market in the U.S. grew from 4.5 million units shipped in 2000 to 28.3 million units in 2007, according to PMA."

(Image and text available at:http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/21/what-happened-to-kodaks-moment/)

Instagram

Instagram is an online photo-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as media sites including Facebook and Twitter. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 16:9 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras. (Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram) 

(Image available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/reallyniceimages/8022882705/)

Today there are more than 100 million monthly active users posting more than 40 million photos per day. (Available at: http://business.time.com/2013/04/09/a-year-later-instagram-hasnt-made-a-dime-was-it-worth-1-billion/) 

Instagram is used by ordinary people and celebrities alike. It is used to document important times, advertise events and products, plus the more stereotypical Instagram types, “selfies”, animal portraits and food images.