Talk about conflicted. I'm browsing through facebook the other day and see some photos from an old friend (aquaintence), and I see all these trippy looking shots. But wait, this dude doesn't have a creative bone in his body, so what gives? I doubt my old friend has taken a darkroom class. Could it be that my long lost pal from Orange County has been turned on to the holga culture? Nope. He's found hipstamatic and he has become, well...."hip." Is this a good thing, or do you somehow need to earn the right to this level of creativity? Is it sacrilege to use a digital facsimile to imitate a 1960′s look? I do it to some extent in my shop when we apply a sloppy border mask via photoshop.
When I first saw hipstamatic or "losermatic" as I heard someone say, I thought, man this is genius. I know we all wish we would have thought it up ourselves, but it pains us because it's one more cool thing gone mainstream. I guess this reminds me of how I felt when I heard Nick Drake playing in a VW commercial. I wanted to puke because my beloved tortured folk singer was now stuck between sports and weather on the 6 o'clock news. So, if my 16 year old niece buys the Blackkeys black and white app and makes her phone shots into something fantastic, does that invalidate every print every made in a darkroom?
I'm the guy who coined the phrase, "my camera is not a phone, and my phone is not a camera." Yet, is there some good that can come from Hipstamatic? Does it matter how we get exposed to coolness? Who needs art school, buy an app. Lot's of questions from me today, so the verdict is....cool or lame?? I'm sayin' lame, but I wish I would have thought it up first!
On Your Beautiful Pictures Are Stupid: Against Trendy Digital Photography
Hipstamatic..cool or lame??
6 07 2010
Talk about conflicted. I'm browsing through facebook the other day and see some photos from an old friend (aquaintence), and I see all these trippy looking shots. But wait, this dude doesn't have a creative bone in his body, so what gives? I doubt my old friend has taken a darkroom class. Could it be that my long lost pal from Orange County has been turned on to the holga culture? Nope. He's found hipstamatic and he has become, well...."hip." Is this a good thing, or do you somehow need to earn the right to this level of creativity? Is it sacrilege to use a digital facsimile to imitate a 1960′s look? I do it to some extent in my shop when we apply a sloppy border mask via photoshop.
When I first saw hipstamatic or "losermatic" as I heard someone say, I thought, man this is genius. I know we all wish we would have thought it up ourselves, but it pains us because it's one more cool thing gone mainstream. I guess this reminds me of how I felt when I heard Nick Drake playing in a VW commercial. I wanted to puke because my beloved tortured folk singer was now stuck between sports and weather on the 6 o'clock news. So, if my 16 year old niece buys the Blackkeys black and white app and makes her phone shots into something fantastic, does that invalidate every print every made in a darkroom?
I'm the guy who coined the phrase, "my camera is not a phone, and my phone is not a camera." Yet, is there some good that can come from Hipstamatic? Does it matter how we get exposed to coolness? Who needs art school, buy an app. Lot's of questions from me today, so the verdict is....cool or lame?? I'm sayin' lame, but I wish I would have thought it up first!