Friday March 29th, 2024
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Dalia Does…Instagram

Because everyone else is.

Staff Writer

I love pretty pictures. For someone whose job it is to write, that’s a serious announcement for me to make. Luckily, however, I’m not the only one. My dad has hundreds of brilliant black and white photos from the 60s, magazines have become more known for their photography than their features and the internet is bursting at the seams. Seriously – I’ve been known to scroll through hundreds (literally hundreds) of pages on my favourite photography blog in one sitting. You see, around the time that the internet killed TV, digital cameras killed the notion that photography was a skill reserved exclusively for serious journalism or high-brow art. The world wide web became a feast for the eyes and social networking provided the incentive for anyone and everyone to upload and share whatever they thought was cool. It’s brilliant – if your downloads folder isn’t filled with pictures of yawning puppies, Banksy’s graffiti, macaroons and meaningful messages written neatly in a Moleskin, frankly, you’re using the internet wrong. (Incidentely, if you haven’t suffered from bouts of Tumblr-induced anorexia, you’re probably doing it wrong too, but the effects of Tumblr on my body image are best left for another blog post.) Unfortunately, just as the digital camera came in and revolutionised photography, the mobile camera came along and murdered it. Shortly after that, Instagram showed up and turned it into a zombie.

The same way every Egyptian with internet access quickly became a journalist (including, sadly, my mum), everyone with an iPhone recently became a photographer. Now we’ve established that I love me a pretty picture just as much as the next 15 year old girl (I’m 24), but Instagram has taken it to the next fuzzy, glowing level. Yes, your cup of coffee looks great with that ‘Toaster’ effect on it, but, if I squint, it could just as well be a puddle, the sunrise over Florence, or Kim Kardashian’s face. If you want to see everything in dream-like distortion, I know someone who knows someone who could totally get you some LSD. It’s probably cheaper than an iPhone and you’ll end up doing far more interesting things than taking pictures of cupcakes or your feet. (Seriously, stop taking pictures of your feet. It’s weird and they’re gross, no matter what effect you use). It’s funny that Instagram calls their effects ‘filters’ because they seem to do just that. It’s like these blurry, coloured effects filter out the fact that the picture you just posted is of an average tree, a regular sandwich or an ugly friend and we begin to fawn over it, favourite your tweets and rush to the ‘Like’ button. Nevertheless, I’m a firm believer in the fact that you can’t criticise anything until you’ve tried it, and it can’t be Dalia Does unless I actually do something. So I borrowed an iPhone and got my Instagram on…

OMG - Doesn't this '1977' filter make this Pepsi look like it's from 1977???
 
Patriotism has never looked so edgy
 
If I take a retro Instagram picture of my boring Blackberry with a cool iPhone, does it come full circle and make Blackberries cool again (in a retro way, of course)?
 
Golden phoenix eggs or a close-up of vitamin E capsules? I'll never tell!
 
Here's a relaxed rabbit because I'm quirky and stuff.
Ok, Ok I’ll admit it’s sort of fun in that way that makes you hate yourself. Carry on, Instagrammers, I can’t wait to see where your rose tinted camera phone takes you next.