Fascination with the Old

The web/smartphone app "Instagram" has been on the news lately... snapped up by Facebook for a ridiculous amount of money. I didn't understand the fascination with Instagram until I installed it on my smartphone a week ago. Oh my goodness... what fun!




Basically, you can snap a picture with your smartphone camera (or upload one from your gallery) and then apply a variety of filters to make the photograph look old or faded or scratched or overexposed... And then easily upload it to your facebook page... or share it elsewhere...

Fun!! I did a bit of searching and discovered that there are a few other options out there - one in particular is even better than Instagram... in my opinion. Pixlr-o-matic does the same thing but even better. Way more filters plus border options. And it feels fun too - like you're playing in a darkroom and mucking around with various exposures...

Take a look at the Tower of London - looks pretty old doesn't it? Worn and scratched - picture could be 100 years old...

Nope... picture not even 6 months old...  Oh yeah - lots of fun possible with this!! Pictures can be filtered to look like they were taken in the 70s (you know, that yellowish tone that all those 70s pics had). Pictures can have all sorts of edges - rounded (like the 70s) or ripped or worn... Oh yeah...