disclamimer: i’m a bit drunk, and kind of angry

Here’s why I like Instagram: It’s fun.

It encourages people to play with their camera. To experiment with the photos they take and the images they produce in a simple, playful way.

Its sole, joyful purpose is to encourage a bit of extra fun around the humble practice of taking a happy snap on your phone. Frankly, any piece of software which asks nothing more of its users than to take pleasure in an act of creativity gets my admiration and approval.

Do I care that the filters tend to reduce things to a relatively repetitive collection of colour palettes, dynamic ranges and ‘grain’ textures? No. I don’t.

Does it matter, as I’ve heard some people claim, that it can make mediocre composition, mundane subject matter or amatuerish technique look far better than it really should? Fuck no.

Anyway, let’s think about that – the idea that software is somehow cheating because it can sometimes, through luck or skill, make an average photo look good.

What the fuck?

The result is what counts, not how you get there. If the result looks appealing, interesting, arresting, provocative, or just plain pretty then it’s a good photo, regardless of the process that got you there. Never mind the tools – does the photo capture a moment? Does it move you? Is it interesting? That’s what counts.

So let’s get few things straight.

Instagram does not denigrate, cheapen, or harm in any way Photography with a capital P or Art with a capital A. If anything, it encourages people who may not have previously done so to think about things like colour, texture and composition. It makes taking happy snaps fun. And fuck you if you have a problem with that.

I was planning to write something much more eloquent but, frankly, i’m a but pissed. So to conclude:

Get over it. Instagram encourages people to be playful with phography in the same way that Twitter encourages people to be playful with language. The very limitations of the form inspire some extraordinary creativity. Sure, you get a lot of nonsense in there as well, but nobody ever promised any different.

It’s too easy to be cynical, dismissive, snide. To decry popular culture as some sort of lowbrow wannabe impersonation of real art. To say Instagram is fauxtography for hipsters, or Twitter is conversation for the socially retarded, or Justin Beiber makes songs for people who can’t handle real music.

If you want live in that world, go for it. Personally I’d like to try once in a while to be less cynical, and just be grateful for the fact that people seem to take pleasure from acts of creativity, no matter what tools they choose to employ.

Last Friday, I put up a tiny little Google form asking a simple question: What was the first album you ever bought? 30 people responded View the results at http://flamingmongrel.net/lab/firstalbums/

I’m pretty obsessive about taking notes during meetings. But, I have to admit, the notes I take aren’t always very useful.

Click the image for a larger view.

This week I wrote some advertising copy for a certain car company which will go unnamed. This is not that copy.

Hark, gentles, and ready your spirits to soar. Advancing with haste upon the third chapter of our Gregorian dodecagon, I am pleasure-puffed to declare a generational enhancement of substantive note.

Our fabtastical new jalopy has been most recent rave-received amongst the sophisticates of Europe, met fair and true with waves of hysterical bliss-fainting and jaws agape in wonderment.

Saddlewise deployment of steed strength delivers unceasing operatory pleasure parcels throughout limitless kilometric advancement. Take assurance: green eyed dusteaters are your guaranteed wake-fillers whilst you style, eversleek, horizon bound.

Assume a position of attentive poise. We draw rapturous upon the hour whenceforth it shall be Australianic of privilege to cry with one voice united:

“Crikey. She’s a beauty.”

1. You know most of the songs in the JJJ Hottest 100, but think the majority of them are shit. You bemoan the fact that this year isn’t as good as previous years.
2. You don’t recognise most of the songs in the JJJ Hottest 100. This saddens you, and you vow to listen to more new music in the year to come. This is vow which you know you will break, but you’re not going to admit it.
3. You don’t know any of the songs in the JJJ Hottest 100 and, frankly, couldn’t give a fuck.

Stage 1 is characterised by such statements as “It can’t be Christmas already.” and “Where did the year disappear to?” Christmas denial is linked to a superstitious belief that every successive calendar year is in some way shorter than the one which preceded it.

Stage 2: Pain and Guilt

The crippling wrist cramps set in around about the time you address your 14th or 15th Christmas card. Have you, in the entire year to date, written so much by hand in one evening? And, adding insult to injury, here comes those waves of guilt. Oh sure, you’re writing a card to Great-Aunt Esme but when was the last time you actually went to visit her?

Stage 3: Anger and Bargaining

Let’s face it, shopping for Christmas presents is pretty much anger and bargaining in equal measure.

 Stage 4: Depression, reflection, loneliness

“Oh God, there’s still so much to organise.”

“This is out of control. Next year, we really should keep it simple. Srsly.”

“Work somehow skipped over me in the office Kris Kringle. Again.”

Stage 5: The upward turn

You’ve bought most of the presents, negotiated a happy equilibrium between who will host lunch and who will bring dessert, and preordered a fucking big ham. The tree is tinsel strewn, baubled, and angel topped. Every time you buy something – be it a newspaper, a cup of coffee, or a new fridge big enough to hold the fucking enormous ham – you exchange Merry Christmas’s with the person taking your money. And it feels kind of nice.

Stage 6: Reconstruction and Working Through

All those bridges burnt amongst warring family factions throughout the year must be mended prior to the Christmas day assembly. Goodwill on all sides is required, and everyone will have to agree to not to mention that disastrous game of Monopoly from the year before last, in which the rules for Free Parking were not sufficiently bedded down prior to play commencing. Forgiveness on all sides is asked, offered and received. There may be hugs, and broken Facebook connections will be remade.

Stage 7: Acceptance and Hope

Christmas day is all about acceptance and hope. You accept another slice of ham, an extra glass of something fizzy, some jazzy socks from Great-Aunt Esme, the slightly too-familiar hugs from “Uncle” Dennis. You hope the jumper you bought for your dad is the right size, that the weather will hold up until the Weber is done, and that your inside information about booze bus locations proves to be accurate.

And, of course, you accept good wishes and love from friends and family while expressing the sincerest hope that they each have a Merry Christmas, a safe joyous holiday and the very best of new years.

Merry Christmas to you, and have a happy new year.

Which is why at around mid-afternoon I found myself on my third mission of vehicular relocation for the day. I was walking through the car park when a slow moving car drew alongside me, passing by in a quest for an empty spot.

Being in something of a distracted frame of mind, I didn’t really notice the car was there. The driver-side window was down and as he passed by me the driver sneezed loudly. Without thinking, before i had time to stop myself, I offered a reflexive ‘bless you’ and then broke from my ground-facing reverie in mildly embarrassed horror to realise the driver had heard me and was now pissing himself (not literally) with laughter. Eye contact was made, a smile exchanged, and he continued on.

It was a tiny shared moment of humour between two people who have never met, and will never meet again. I think there’s something of genuine beauty in those little random encounters.