The recent spate of crapcam-inspired iPhone filters has been great for creative photography in general, and just showing people how colour tone can make all the difference in a photo.
Like every photographic tool and style, there is a place for the murky blurriness of Lomo expression.
But the deluge of Instagram pictures on Twitter is such a plague. An iPhone app (or crapcam, in whichever software or hardware flavour) should not be a substitute for good composition and thought put into a picture.
This iPhone photography blog by Eugene Hsu is one of my favourites, and the better ones out there showing how iPhone apps can be used in combination with a good eye, to great effect.
He doesn't just use software filters; I remember one post where he used his forehead oil to create some nice lens flare—but I digress.
Here's a chat I had last week with Angel on the topic:
Angel
ok i don't really understand this instagram thing
Victoria Ho
why? oh okay basically it's an app
and it will "lomofy" your pictures with filters and image processing nonsense
and post it up onto a website that is like twitpic and tweet on your behalf
Angel
yes but like
Victoria Ho
why are people making their photos so blurry?
Angel
yes! it works for some photos, but when you do it for every single photo everything just becomes hard to see
and i get frustrated like, COME ON I WANNA SEE A PROPER CLEAR PHOTO OF THE SKY
because the sky colours can be really pretty
Victoria Ho
because that is the whole problem with this lomo effing nonsense
that somehow it got fashionable to take crap pictures
and now there are pictures made to look crap on purpose which defeats the initial purpose of arty lomo pictures
Angel
yeah isn't it? i mean i GET it. but for every single thing?
in the end every photo just looks crap
GET OVER THE INSTAGRAM THING PEOPLE
i hate having to squint at that lump of beige thing with the random grey stuff that you're eating
looks really yummy. beige things with grey topping.