College Media Matters

In a recent front-page story, The Orion at California State University, Chico, focused on the odd, increasingly addictive practice of “edit[ing] everyday images to look old-fashioned.”  The app that has made such immediate aging possible: Instagram.  Its ease of use and convenient sharing capabilities have made it a huge hit since its launch, raising related questions about its relative artistic merits and the ethics of altering what has been snapped.

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One interesting Instagram idea the Orion embraced: some photos featured in the paper were adapted via the app, giving readers a glimpse at what various campus spots might have looked like in the “sepia-toned, Polaroid-infused days of yore.”

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In a related piece, Orion features editor Ben Mullin explains how the app has enabled pictures to be saved from the almost-too-perfect digital photography landscape.  It is one of the more interesting pieces I’ve read so far this month.

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As he writes at one point, “I threw my hands in the air and declared Instagram a fad until I was forced to consider the pictures more closely.  Faded around the edges. Tinted with unnatural greens and blues. A little too dark to be real.  Instagram is not the perfect visual representation of reality that our high-resolution cameras have led us to believe in. An Instagram photo forces us to consider everyday images as they aren’t by putting them into a different light that we each get to pick. . . . In a snapshot, Instagram has showed us that a picture can be worth a thousand more words if we stop and age it 100 years.”

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