Why you should love Instagram

I know it's probably a very popular thing to do and yes, maybe I have been totally seduced by the ease of creating fab pics from generic filters, but I really love Instagram and I'll tell you why.  Firstly, if you are not one of the gazillion people currently obsessed by this visual feast then let me get you up to speed. Instagram is an app for your phone, you take a pic, crop it, apply a filter and bingo you are an instantly fab "phonographer" who can take atmospheric and sumptuous images by simply snapping pics on the run with no major crisis about the correct exposure, weather conditions, shutter speed or aperture. It's easy photography, some photo snobs may even say "lazy" but Instagram has a fair bit going for it and here's why.  Good old Instagram makes you take notice. Suddenly every trip into town, every moment spent with the family, every outing, every landscape before you, every lost moment waiting for the bus or being stuck at the roadworks become an opportunity to look around you, line up a composition, focus on a colour, get happy finding a pattern or just see something beautiful amongst something kind of ordinary.

Being a visual girl, I tend to look for inspiration everywhere, pretty much all of the time, but now I can "collect" them, instantly, beautifully, easily. I guess in a ridiculous kind of a way, this "instant" visual fix makes you keenly present. In all of the rushing, in all of the to and fro, you take one small second to be still, to observe and to notice all of the detail around you, or the bigger picture.  So is Instagram a spiritual experience? Um, well, I may be going a little too far there, but I do know one thing; everytime I collect an image on Instagram, this little gadget, app, novelty, I get to capture and document something really beautiful. So everyday I get to experience a beautiful image, and everyday I get to see other peoples beautiful images and I get to "like" that image, and talk to that person and I get to experience their joy at seeing beautiful things.

It may just be Instagram, but if more people could capture one single moment of beauty everyday in one little image I think that THAT is amazing. And when people tell you that art is a luxury and not a necessity, you point them towards Instagram and tell them to prepare to see beautiful things and smile at least once a day.


See my Instagram pics here