The best camera you'll ever own is the one you have with you.
The iPhone, for good and/or bad, is always with me. It's a communication device, it's a computer, it's a camera, it's a dessert, it's a floor wax, it's a fucking miracle that fits in my pocket.
A lot of people spend their time on Angry Birds and Temple Run. Mine goes into taking pictures. I take a lot of pictures.
I take them with the iPhone issued camera app. I take a bunch because, well, it's digital. I can throw away the ones that are blurry or framed poorly - the ones that suck.
Most of the photos I take will go on Instagram, a square format. So I shoot to crop; I give myself room.
There are TONS of apps for iphoneography. SHIT TONS. Personally I have several dozen, although I only use about 6 regularly.
(I know what you're thinking... I use an app called Appshopper; which is now Appshopper Social. It keeps a list of apps I'm interested in buying. When an app is on sale, or FREE - it alerts me.)
The one I seem to use most is Decim8. It turns your pictures automagically into puck rock album art. This is a picture I took of a bio-hazard sticker on the garbage can when I had a Dr appt.
Decim8's blurb in the App store:
FILM IS DEAD ... And yet many camera apps still insist upon attempting simulations of that long-past era. We say NO to artificial nostalgia, pushing forward in the digital realm with different forms of creative destruction.
With that in mind we present Decim8, a digital tool for photographic destruction. Armed with a set of bit-glitching filters, evolve your pictures into strange and sublime artifacts bordering on chaos. There are no effects to simulate your grandpa's snapshots. No virtual replicas of plastic instant-cams from your imaginary summer of '73. Just mad combinations of digital data-mashing. That's how we roll.
I'm an anti-social social network kind of guy. I don't post a lot of personal pictures, although I'm trying to*. I mostly post casual/abstract arty stuff, or something with a story connected to it. And I always provide a title. Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think you really need something to anchor it in a digital space. Otherwise it's just a sandwich or a tree; which is fine, but still...
That said, I try to keep my gallery mixed. I don't want to by arty guy, daddy guy, obsessed with burgers guy, or boring random guy.
Further, an image has to originate from my phone; no dslr pictures, nothing re-grammed, nothing memetastic. I manipulate it in other apps until I get something I dig, and then post. I'll tag people or locations if appropriate. I hashtag the app I'm using, or the subject, joke, etc. I don't do all that instagold instabest instacrap hashtagging - too much work/nonsense. I like pictures I like, although sometimes I'm just being supportive. I keep my comments minimal, usually just emoji if I can. And I try to only post a few pictures at a time - so as not to clog up the stream, as it were.
Lately, I've been doing a lot of timelapse now that Instagram can do video. And I create montage style stuff of my kids. (Yes, they have private accounts.) But I'm still experimenting. To do it right, video demands more time.
But I understand Instagram is an evolving platform, so who knows...
Anyhoo, that's how I play the Instagram.
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* None of my friends - people who I actually know in real life - ever like my arty pictures. None. But if I post a picture of something personal, like an old bandana or a shoe, I usually get a few likes. Which is fine. Likes are not a thing for me. Don't get me wrong, they're nice. But in the same way that of your 500 hundred facebook friends, only 5 will take you to the airport, the Instagram timeline is faster and blurrier and not everyone is on there seeing all your stunning snaps.
Nonetheless I recognize Instagram is a social network. And really, there are other better places to create your galleries such as 500px, Tadaa, etc...
So I'm trying to share more personal stuff because I like when friends post their personal stuff. It's nice. And I can do the same.
We're all just playing, right?
Well played.
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