Instabeauty

Everyone's a photographer these days. Thanks to applications like Instagram and Photo Shop, we can all pretty much look like pros. Our phones take amazing pictures, and there is no end to the effects and filters we can apply. It's great fun. I have found Instagram to be a wonderful creative outlet. I can't draw, sculpt, or paint, I get bored with my own poetry, I can't sit still long enough to write a song, and I generally don't do well with handicrafts.

But I have visions of beauty, like everyone else. And I always assumed that "art", whatever that term includes, belongs to people with innate talent for creating it.

Instagram has changed that for me! Now I can recognize that art and beauty are not exclusive or elite. They are pervasive. They belong to all of us.

No, Instagram is not paying me to say this. I'm really just having fun with a tool that has allowed me to see beauty in the everyday. And I'm discovering that I see my world differently now that I am intentionally looking for opportunities to capture beauty.

When I first signed on to Instagram, I would chuckle at the photos of shoes, dinner plates, and other little mundane details of the photographer's life. I thought "Come on, we don't care what you're eating for dinner tonight". But then one day I made a breakfast sandwich for myself, and I looked at it on my plate. As I looked, it became more interesting. And I decided to share the image with people on Instagram.

Suddenly I had become one of those people. An amateur iPhone photographer who thinks her photos are so interesting they must be shared with the world.

As it turns out, I have changed my mind. I think we should all be photographers. We aren't all good, but we should all try. Not to get followers or feed our egos, and not even to create interesting works of art.

We should all be photographers because the search for a good photo forces us to stop and look at our world, to see beauty in the details, and to feel connected to what's around us. Instagram, and tools like it, are just ways of helping us to see the beauty that is all around us. I mean, who knew a sandwich could look so interesting? Who knew a plate of edamame could be so beautiful?

Interestingly, I have gotten more "likes" and comments on my picture of edamame than I have on pictures of trees or the lake, the scenes more commonly thought of as "beautiful". But truthfully, I think we are all excited about seeing beauty in everyday details. Colors, textures, shapes--I think it's great that we are seeing and sharing these elements in our human community. It's drawing us closer.

Professional or semi-professional photographers out there, we still need you. You have an eye for placement, framing, shading, energy, etc. You are artists. The rest of us are simply learning to capture and appreciate beautiful moments in our lives. There is room for all of us. There is space for all of our pictures to hang side by side.

There is, of course, another life lesson to be taken from Instagram. Seeing a photo opportunity and recognizing something interesting is just the beginning. From there, we literally decide what to focus on within the frame and what filter to put on the picture. We take an objective scene and choose how to view it. That's where our individual stamp comes in. Instagram photos (and any photo, for that matter) are interesting because we try to imagine why the photographer chose a particular finish for a photo. That process can be just as telling as the actual details the photographer chose to shoot.

What can you tell about me based on these pictures?

If you haven't tried photography yet, give it a try. It doesn't really matter what tools you use. Just look for opportunities to see beauty in places you would have taken for granted before. Enjoy.