At Like Minds this week I enjoyed a lunchtime talk hosted by Benjamin Ellis. I think it was called ‘What I have learned from 20,000 photos’. Ben talked with enthusiasm about his love of photography, how the craft had changed over time, and the different styles required for commercial projects.
Most of the group chipped in with reflections and anecdotes. After all many of us take photos daily using smartphone cameras . And boy, were there a lot of smartphones at LikeMinds.
Photographer Harry Duns happened to be at this talk, and it was interesting to hear about his own self-editing censorship process. In a world where we feel obliged to publish instantly on posterous, tumblr or whatever is in vogue, he’s pretty careful about which of his images are released into the world.
The chatter turned to all the cool stuff you can do with smartphone cameras and apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic. The consensus was that these apps are clever, but delivered only a superficial quality. Styles replicated often become generic and meaningless.
I only discovered Instagram over the last week or so, and I am still in the first flush of enjoyment. In my naive enthusiasm, I used Instagram to record the very moment its name was being dragged in the mud. And that is the photo you see on this post.
Looking through the Flickr sets a day or two after LikeMinds ended, I see I am not alone in enjoying the cheap thrills of instant photo treatment.
