Instagram is Lightweight and Fun

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr and Instagram

Technology Thursday

A few years back I did a Project 365 photography project that was supposed to be a self-portrait every day. I managed to take a whole bunch of self-portraits, although not quite every day. Unfortunately, I stopped being creative rather quickly and started to just snap a washed out looking Photobooth picture of myself every day with my iMac. It was still an interesting project (for me), but hardly the creative challenge I'd thought I'd try to make for myself. Similarly, I've declared 2011 to be another Project365 year, although I'm not restricting myself to any particular subjects.

I was pretty pleased with my Day 1 photo, but since then it has sort of devolved into snapshots taken with my phone when I remember I haven't taken any pictures yet, or snapshots of the kiddo. Meanwhile, the 3 photography books I've bought for inspiration over the last couple of years sit on my desk collecting dust because if I have time, I don't have energy to dive into them, and if I have energy, I don't have time. And I'm just talking about time to read the book, to say nothing of actually carrying my camera around all day and making a real effort to take more pictures. Oh well, maybe I'll be able to squeeze more time out for this later in the year.

When it comes to sharing photos, though, one thing I've found to be surprisingly fun is the little social media app Instagram.

Now I have a bit of a paradoxical relationship to social media. Of course, I live it, love it, bought the t-shirt 20 years ago (before they called it social media) and it's already worn out and part of a quilt, now. But, probably because of that, I'm pretty dubious of any shiny new social media application that comes on the scene. It's hard to keep track of them all or even spend the time exploring them. So I tend to wait and see if a critical mass of people I know or whose opinions I generally respect start using it.

In the case of Instagram, I was hearing a lot of buzz about it, but hadn't bothered to figure out what it was. I knew it was something about 'photos' and 'social'. And I thought, well, I've got Flickr and that's enough. But something finally made me take a closer look - I think it might have been this write-up by @rands, and I've now started playing with it a bit. From the rands post:

Delivering the Instagram pitch is usually a study in disappointment.
Me: “You take pictures, tweak them with filters, and then share them with your friends.”
You: “Yeah, I have three of those.”
Yet in a crowded market of low-end mobile photo editing tools, Instagram has become an overnight success. Why?

Go read the rest - he explains it better than I could.

For me, the filters are fun (almost every time I decide to put a picture there I find myself testing out each filter before choosing one), the transient nature of the app is fun, and the minimal social aspect is just enough. I don't feel like I need to take a great picture. Just something fun, or amusing, or day-in-the-life.

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr and Instagram

I follow a dozen or so people there, just for kicks - some I know, some I don't. I wish more of my peeps were there, but it's ok for now. The app also allows you to easily flow your pictures to other social media environments, such as Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and so on. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. (Oh, and don't ask me about Tumblr yet - that's one of those things that I see a lot of people using, but I just haven't grokked it myself yet.)

So anyway, here's another plug for Instagram. I think it's iPhone-only right now. (I'm now really impatient to get the iPhone 4 (or 5!) since I know the camera's even better on that device. I'm stuck with a 3Gs for now.) You can follow my stream there under username 'medley'. Are you there? Drop a note in the comments and let us know.