Facebook just snatched up Instagram for a cool billion. I remember when we used to say "a cool mil" like that was the most money anyone could ever have... Anyways, as I'm sure we're all aware by now, Facebook recently purchased the mobile photo-sharing app Instagram for 1 billion dollars. And to top it off, the deal included a 20% breakup fee of 200 million dollars.
I personally didn't even know Instagram was a thing until the purchase. So when this thing hit my radar I was like, "Whoa. What's the deal with Instagram?" A few Google searches later, I understood. Another social network, another photo sharing app. Big whoop.
The "whoop," after the jump.
The thing is, a lot of photographers are annoyed or even angry by the app and/or it's users. Like the new Lytro camera, a little box with no adjustable manual controls but with the ability to change the focal plane in post-production, Instagram enables everybody to think that they are an amazing photographer. A great many of the photographers who hate on the app, whether they know it or not, feel threatened by the ability for an average consumer to take better pictures than they could before.
This is not a new phenomenon. It happened when Eastman Kodak produced the Brownie. And with the Polaroid. Yet again with the advent of digital photography, and when cameras were first combined with cell phones. Every time an advance is made in photographic technology, those of us who have studied, practiced, sweated and spent our rent money to pay for our love of photography become angry that the secretary down the hall can now do in seconds what once took us three hours.
Is it annoying? Absolutely. Every time I see a crappy sepia toned photo of someone's cat or the flowers on their porch I want to break their website (read: punch my monitor). Is this an understandable reaction? Of course! I make well composed, sepia toned images of the flowers on my porch with 35mm black and white film and print by hand, in the tray line, using years of experience to make what I think is a perfect photograph (pats self on back), and then I see a similar photo on Facebook or Flickr with an Instagram label next to it. Of course it irks me, as it should.
And that is my point. As Mythbusters proved, you can polish a turd. But it is still a turd, just a shiny one.
"Real" photographers, from fine art to commercial ones, shouldn't be afraid of this kind of thing. You will still find the same ads on Craigslist, requesting a photographer for x y or z purposes that you would have found in the newspaper in 1983. And you can't become a National Geographic photographer (my personal dream) on a portfolio full of Instagrams. People still value professional work, skills and talent.
No matter how "instant" taking or sharing a snapshot becomes, photographs are still valued. A snapshot's purpose is to have a visual memory of something for yourself and to share it with others. A moment, or a pretty flower, or your new puppy. And that is what Instagram does. A D700 or a 5D mkIII is for professionals who do professional work. And it will remain that way.
Like I said, big whoop.
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