What Instagram Taught Me

Well, actually it's more One of the things Instagram taught me, there are many lessons in Instagram's short history (one of them being How to make a billion bucks in two years).
Here, I'm focusing on a photography lesson.

Well, actually it's more a reminder than a lesson.
The accurate title would then be What Photography Lesson Instagram Reminded Me.
But it's less catchy.

So. This lesson ?
Polaroid® was right.
(And Hasselblad before that. And Rollei before that)

I love Polaroids. I managed to document the last 15 years of my life with approximately 2,000 of them. I wait for a less beta feeling of The Impossible Project like the rebirth of Steve Jobs, and I cherish my collection like my second nipple.
Most of us love Polaroids. And we already know why we love them :

• instant unique moments,
• carefully curated images,
• in a square aspect ratio.

And that's exactly what Instagram recreated. Adding the sharing feature was not what made a killer product out of it ; it's handy at best. I'd love Instagram the same if all it did was saving the pictures on my phone, or upload them to Flickr.

Instant, Curated, Square.

So, how will I use this renewed knowledge, then ?
Well, I will apply it to the output stream of my DSLR.
Each event I cover with it generates a few hundred pictures, painfully trimmed to a few dozen, hastily and mechanically Lightroomed, before being fed to the audience.
Now, I shall pick a few, enhance them in any way I please (including adding filters if I feel like it), crop them to a perfect square, and, finally, delight the viewers (or not, but I don't care as long as I'm satisfied).

Same lesson goes for the display of the pictures.
Today, I present them via a private website, nicely ordered by events, each nicely ordered in a grid...
The objective is much simpler: a constant feed of captioned pictures, one after the other, in the very same way Instagram presents them.

Instant, Curated, Square.