On a cold August evening last year, I sat in bed messing around with my new iPad. I hit the camera button and shot a picture of the Melville Cat. Then I went to the app store and downloaded a free app called Instagram. I plugged in the photo, added an Instagram filter, and got this.
A grainy Melville Cat.
Five months later, I’ve posted 463 photos on Instagram. My cat-stagrams have improved significantly.
I’ve even learned how to shoot horizontal Instagrams.
In the same way that digital photography transformed my life two years ago, Instagram has transformed it again. I’ve made a new group of friends — people I never would have befriended if not for Instagram. We go Instawalking around Joburg almost every weekend. We climb up to places where we don’t belong. We sit around fast-food restaurants in comfortable semi-silence, editing photos on our phones and making jokes about bananas. I rarely bring my DSLR on these outings.
I took this on a recent Instawalk in Fordsburg and Mayfair. A DSLR would have ruined the moment but I was able to capture it with my iPhone.
Another shot that I probably wouldn’t have taken with my big camera.
Taken on a rainy Instawalk in the Jozi CBD last weekend.
My two biggest passions at the moment are taking photos and walking the streets of Jozi. Instagram provides the perfect forum for those two passions.
Crazy @garethpon, jumping across a railroad bridge in Mayfair. Instagramers like to jump. I wouldn’t have attempted a shot like this before my Instagram days.
Instagram does different things for different people, but for me it’s a bridge between documentary photography and art. It’s a social network for cutting-edge artists, storytellers, and regular people who like to connect with the world through pictures. It’s a community that I’m grateful to have become part of.
The Jozi Instagramers, aka @IGersJozi. This photo was featured last week on Instagram’s main feed, which has more than 14 million followers. I’m pretty psyched to be in it. (Photo by Gareth Pon)
I’ve been flooding cyberspace with Instagram blogging lately and I don’t want to overdo it. So I’ll get to the point. My Instagram friends, led by the crazy jumper Gareth Pon, have started a new group on Instagram called @igerssouthafrica. These guys are passionate about Instagram and they are putting South African Instagramers (IG-ers) on the map. They’ve organized a bunch of “Instameets” in cities all around South Africa this Sunday and they want as many people as possible to join.
“Infogram” for the @igerssouthafrica Instameet in Jozi, which starts at 5:30 on Sunday in the Maboneng Precinct. It’s going to be epic. And you can win prizes and stuff.
So if you’re sick of reading about Instagram on my blog and want to check it out for yourself, or if you’re on Instagram already and want to meet some of your favorite IG-ers in person, you should come. There are walks in Jozi, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, and a bunch of other places. Go to the @igerssouthafrica Instagram feed for more details, or if you’re not on Instagram yet go here.
You need to have an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone to load pictures on Instagram. I recognize that this excludes a significant portion of the South African population. But come anyway, even if you don’t have one of these devices. You won’t be able to feature your own photos on Instagram but you can still be featured in someone else’s.
Golden-hour Jozi IG-er’s jump. I love this shot. Can you find me? Hint: You can see the phone in my hand. (Photo by Ofentse Mwase, aka @unclescrooch)
Join the South African Instagram orgy on Sunday. All the cool kids are doing it. That is all.
I love it Heather!
Instagram is one of those healthy, creative addictions. I can’t get enough either. It’s crazy how we’ve made new friends offline through the social network and the circle continues to get bigger. Funny thing is, we now talk with these people every single day!
I love Instagram and the community that we’re building around it. Can’t wait to meet more people on our walks this weekend.
Right on, Alessio. Thanks for the comment. Banana.
New to Blogging, new to an Iphone, new to instagram.. but still might join in
Yay! Newbies welcome. Hope to see you there.
I’ve got an iphone and and Ipad but very rarely use it for taking photos. I suppose I am a contararian – can’t see the use of spending thousands on good gear and then running around with an i-thingy snapping everything in sight – posting it on social media and calling it art, I much rather shoot analogue if I want to push my creative boundaries and someone wandering around with an IPad shooting Pix, as you said in a previous post, looks pretty stupid. But each wo(man) to his/her own poison – lots of love
Hi Derek,
Yep, I agree with you on the iPad thing. That’s why I have an iPhone now
Obviously I have a different perspective than you do. I see Instagram and the iPhone as complementary tools to go along with the expensive gear (and photo-sharing tools like Flickr, which is similar to Instagram in many ways). There are times when I like to use one, times when I like to use the other, and times when I like to use both. I also enjoy the community I’ve discovered through Instagram. It’s something unique that doesn’t exist within other social networking platforms.
And while I also agree that one shouldn’t run around “snapping everything in sight and calling it art”, I must point out that Instagram is most definitely not about that for the Instagramers that I’ve been hanging out with. These guys are very meticulous about the images they shoot, edit, and post on Instagram, and the results are quite amazing. We could debate forever about what is art and what isn’t and what is photography and what isn’t, but I can say with certainty that many of the images are spectacular. Check out these profiles if you get the chance: @roywrench, @levonlock, @zerodarkstar, @unclescrooch, @btherad, @garethpon. You might be surprised!
See you soon on a future walk, DSLR or otherwise
H
Well said