Instagram

I've been really getting into photography the past few months. Today I rediscovered Instagram. To most people those two should be mutually exclusive, but hear me out. I think I finally see what the appeal to instagram is. It lets you make snapshots look... composed.

By "composed" I mean it looks like you took a few minutes, to think about what you were taking. Good or bad, it give sit a bit of a processed look.

Composition is my weakest trait, photographically speaking. I tend to just shoot, and try to fix it in post more than anything. I'm horrible at it. I'm just starting to actually take a few seconds, and think about what I'm shooting. My photos have gotten better for it, but they're still not what I would consider good. They're informational, rather than artistic.

With instagram, you can fake it. It lets you "fix" that image afterwards. It gives the illusion that you took the shot with something in mind. People will still judge whether you actually succeeded, or what the heck you were thinking, but it does make them think. I guess in a way its a shortcut.

Don't get me wrong. People can create amazing things on instagram. But I'm just saying it lets people cover up their mistakes, me included. I might start using it more, simply to set myself to take more pictures.

Recently I've noticed, I don't upload a lot of what I take, simply because the post processing seems a bit daunting. I can make the image look technically good, but there's nothing interesting about the picture.

A few minutes ago I took a shot of the sv650 I took on my first street ride. Ran it through instagram, and added some minimal processing. Made it look a bit over-saturated ( a guilty pleasure I'll admit) and posted it up. Maybe I'm comfortable showing that because thats the norm in instagram?

Either way, bottom line, anything that makes people take more pictures and share them, can't be all bad.