COOL APP/ARTICLE: Instagram + Visual Literacy

[Ryan Goble]

I totally missed the Instagram boat - http://instagr.am

I just read this article in the January 2012 Wired by Clive Thomposn that suggests I might be missing out. Interesting passages...

As I used the app more and more, something surprising happened: I became increasingly observant of the world around me. Walking to the subway the other day, I spotted a backhoe parked on a corner and got curious—what could I do with that? Presto: Hefe helped me turn it into the dirty claw of a weary dragon. Later that day, a filtered snap of my living-room floor revealed how it secretly looks like the wood on a country barn.

But casual photographers rarely developed this type of eye, because they just wanted to point and shoot. What Instagram is doing—along with the myriad other photo apps that have recently emerged—is giving newbies a way to develop deeper visual literacy.

I find it a lovely moment. Today’s tech is often blamed for producing a generation of people who stare at screens. But sometimes it opens up a new window on the world.

Read the full article at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/st_thompson_instagram/