Instathoughts
I find the Instagram app to be exceptionally useful for photographer. Some of the reasons are:
It helps upload photos that are "looser" than the ones you would take with your big camera.
It offers the flexibility to give a more complete view a theme you shoot (different angles, background, equipment etc.)
It instantly informs people about your whereabouts, the subject you are working on and it updates your Twitter and Facebook accounts at the same time.
You follow and are being followed "on the fly" be other photographers/artists.
You have access to an endless photo gallery.
Naturally, like everything else (especially where technology is involved) there are a few downsides:
You have access to an endless photo gallery.
There are probably pictures of each and every one of the 2 billion cats that are on the planet.
There are accounts that have nothing to do with photography, varying from wannabe models to trolls.
Unfortunately, there are many photographers, even professional ones, that use their high-end camera to shoot, they use the latest Photoshop version to edit the pictures, download them to their mobile devices and then upload them.
An approach that, IMHO, is against the services intent and purpose. Especially as now days there are apps and accessories that allow you to turn your mobile's camera to anything from macro to fisheye. I believe pictures on Instagram should be taken with a mobile and any editing done on the same device. I personally use my iPhone camera and 95% of the time Snapspeed and Instagram.The Instagram app itself is very simple to use, with a few limitations (you can only change your profile picture from your mobile and not from a desktop computer for example) and a few, mostly unnecessary in my opinion, editing options. For example you can align and crop, which a photographer either does not need to do or can do much better with other apps such as Snapspeed. The famous filters are also available, which I sometimes use and sometimes don't, always depending on my subject and the desired result.
An example of my instagram workflow :
Image, as taken from iPhone, with fisheye lens.
Image cropped.
Image straightened.
Image with contrast, saturation and warmth adjustments.
Lastly, image was sharpened a little and was uploaded in Instagram with no filter selected.
All adjustments has been done in Snapseed app (Android and iOs).
Anyway, go insta yourself and leave cats alone.
;^)
CATS ARE CONNOISSEURS OF COMFORT | JAMES HERRIOT