It occurred to me today why I like flickr and Instagram and Retrocamera and all those other photosharing apps.
It’s a stop-and-smell-the-flowers moment captured and best of all, paid forward. That moment the photographer stopped to experience, capture and share – it rubs off on everyone else who stops to look at the image down the line.
Like that Stop sign I snapped. I could’ve gone merrily on my way, but I didn’t. After giggling at it myself, foremost on my mind were all those I knew would get a chuckle out of it, and so there it is, sitting in my Flickr stream having been shared on Twitter and Facebook.
I’ve read opposition opinions to filters, mobile photography and photographers (narcissistic, fiddling with a device instead of being in the moment etc) but I think the real value of these apps is that they’ve heightened people’s awareness to the little things around them. I would actually counter that we are all taking micro-moments out of the journeys we’re on and observing and appreciating the beauty and humour around us more than before as a collective.
If this were a side effect of a business I was working on, I’d be mighty proud.