Hipstamatic

Borrowed an iphone to play around with the hipstamatic app that everyone seems to own. I'm conflicted about this app. On one hand, I love how easily it creates the nostalgic effects of old, cheap plastic cameras; on the other hand, it devalues all the effort required in creating one of these images manually. I've owned a Holga (one of those cameras the hipstamatic tries to imitate) for several years now and have experienced the challenge of producing viable images with it. Although technology makes it easier for everyone to be a photographer, it makes it harder to identify who actually knows what they are doing. Check out the two photos below. The top one was taken with the hipstamatic app while the bottom one was taken with a Holga I modified. The hipstamatic photograph took about a minute to shoot, compose, and "develop." The Holga photograph took about fifteen minutes to compose, meter, and shoot. That excludes the time it took for the lab to develop the film or for me to order and scan prints. Both images are pleasing. The hipstamatic image pops with color and grungy artifacts. The Holga image has nice vignetting and a light leak. Comparing these two images, I wonder if it's worth all the trouble of using a Holga when I can simply whip out an iPhone.