Tag: instagram

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Learning to take myself a little less seriously

Its no lie I loathe instagram for brainwashing people into thinking that “retro” photos can only be had by people with iphones, or that its in any way an art form. BUT as i mentioned before I signed up and people didn’t quite get the memo about me being sarcastic about it…soon enough the complaints began to roll in by friends of mine who had found and added me on IG. Why don’t you post anything? When are you going to post something? You dont post enough!

So I caved to the peer pressure and started posting more. It started out with food posts I would tweet my healthy dinners I was experimenting with…and then it clicked. I GET WHY YOU PEOPLE LOVE INSTAGRAM SO MUCH. And by you people I mean the non-douchebag users who don’t really consider their post “art”… its a great platform for sharing seemingly pointless pictures without bombarding your friends twitter timelines or facebook. People come to instragram because they love the voyeuristic effect of it, and I know i’m a little late, but i’ve finally put two and two together. I’m coming around to it, I still think film is better, obviously, but i’m learning to take shit less seriously, especially the pics i’m tweeting. And hey if one of their filters is going to reduce the appearance of my uneven toned skin or make me look skinnier, I’ll take it.

Anyway I know I was like REALLY late coming to the realization that I don’t need to take EVERYTHING so seriously on the internet but i did want to share and explain why I’ve been on instagram lately, mostly because I still believe its evil for the reasons I’ve previously mentioned, but its also great for people who want to share their day to day snapshots in a straight forward kind of way. And if it keeps your creative juices flowing throughout the day when you aren’t able to bust out the real deal and snap a shot…then who am I to judge?

BUT LET ME BE CLEAR. The reasons I posted about before, for my hatred of Instagram STILL STAND.  :)

By the way, you can find me on there under the name of cheapeningtheart  ;)

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Digital Rant: I hate Instagram, part 2

So as some of you may know Instagram dropped for Android recently and then was promptly snapped up by Facebook for a hefty little sum that Facebook will no doubt never make back, but whatever its just another day in the life of Zucky. Anyway, me being the anti iphone girl, I decided to download the app and further annoy everyone who has been complaining about all the android users “ruining” IG and post pictures making fun of the app basically. **extra surly eyeroll**

It seems as if a few people didn’t catch the sarcasm because I got several “omg val you got IG?! I THOUGHT YOU HATED IT!?” **sigh** Apparently I wasn’t obvious in what I thought were ironic pictures (food, kissy faces throwing up deuces, chuck taylors on sidewalks…all with annoying filters). I really thought people would notice the tags I even put on there like “#istillhateinstagram #filmforever” would clue people in but…apparently not.

And I quote... "With mad phone camera skills like this, who needs real cameras anyway? #istillhateinstagram #yesimmakingfunofyou" lol

So let me proclaim this from the virtual rooftops.

I STILL.

HATE INSTAGRAM.

I might even hate it a little more now that people are silly (read: dumb) enough to think that someone like me would ever love that useless app. Basically my opinion of IG is this: if the old myspace, twitter, and path had a nasty three-way and ended up with a bastard lovechild, Instagram would be it.

:)

End rant. Well not really cause I could go on and on and on about how useless of an app it is and how people should NOT be taking their IG photos so serious because they are not special snowflakes…but I digress.

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Long Overdue

messages from the sidewalk, just a few steps from my apartment. i <3 midtown

I haven’t really been around lately, half because I’ve been busy, the other half was obviously laziness. So here’s a not-so-quick update!

  • In the midst of the instagram drama with the facebook buyout,  I created an account for ironic purposes- clearly the message was missed by a few. More on that later, because its a hilarious and ugly rant that deserves its own post.
I believe my original captions tags were #fuckinstagram #filmforever LOL
  • My mom’s 5 year breast-cancer-survival anniversary was 2 weeks ago and to commemorate her and many others fighting, or losing their battles Momma Dee, My sister Moni, & I got matching breast cancer tattoos. My mom and I chose modern cute bows instead of the traditional ribbon & my sis went with a traditional ribbon with the word Hope written on it. It was a nice bonding moment, its just a shame the tattoo place we went to sucked (lesson learned, never try a new shop). Also another lesson learned, you MUST eat before getting tattooed even if its tiny, I thought I’d be okay with my OJ and power bar since my tattoo was small, but I WAS NOT, about a half hour after we left I nearly passed out as we were eating at Jimboys and freaked out my mom and sis LOL, whoops!
pix from the Droid 2 Global, edited with the Photo Grid app for Android
  • Realized the book concept for my portfolio I wanted to do wouldn’t work because my photo scans aren’t high-res enough & I’m not proficient with my personal film scanner yet; thus no book because I’m a broke-ho and pro scans cost up to $30/frame.
  • Got a new camera with THE WORKS, as a gift from a family friend who got it from a NASCAR photog. Its a minolta x-700, with a serious assload of lenses:
    – telephoto
    -a proper macro lens (not just a filter)
    -zoom (30-80mm)
    -50mm
    -super-wide angle (17mm), my favorite so far
    Not to mention it also came with a flash (which I badly needed and couldn’t afford), and a power winder (which basically allows me to shoot several frames per second). Needless to say that was the highlight of my month so far. Thank you OJ! :)
ignore the budlight, thats my dads, i don't touch the stuff with a tenfoot pole.
  • THE wedding is in less than a few days and my entire family is on stress-out mode, so I’ve been keeping my distance until the big day, ah the perks of living downtown. :)
  • Also, just realized aside from pix that were taken on my phone (all of these in this post too), I’ve moved completely to film in the past 3 months. I haven’t used my digital camera at all so much that I’m not even sure what pictures I currently have on my memory card, and my battery is completely drained. OH well. And to think for a minute I was seriously considering buying a Nikon DSLR …
  • Went to Bodega on saturday, it was much needed and ended up being more of a wildlife sighting more than anything. I got to see cows, cute deer, a whale (!!), and even a hawk just chillin’ soaking in the sun. (btw, there were 2 deer grazing not even 20 feet from this guy and I wasn’t that far away either)

  • Also, if you want to keep up with me whenever I take my unexpected hiatuses, I post regularly to twitter, and twitpic.

It felt good catching up guys, I’ll see ya’ll soon.

<333 val

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ITS CHEAPENING THE AAAAARRRRT!!!!!!!

So I know this is small time stuff to ACTUAL famous people but I recently had a tiny mention in the Wall Street Journal last week. THE. Wall Street Journal. It was an article about instagram in journalism, mainly fashion right now. And we all know how much I love instagram and all….

I gave the columnist a 10 minute interview over the phone and all that stuck out to her from all my ranting was one small but hilarious phrase. “Its cheapening the art.” The whole day at work I would yell dramatically to my coworkers ITS CHEAPENING THE AAAARRT. We got a kick out of it. So yeah, small potatoes to some, but my mom made sure I bought a couple copies of the paper considering this is the first time I’ve ever been mentioned in a paper…let alone as a “photographer”… holy crap, that makes it official!!

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HUZZAH. this is called finding the silver lining.

Finally, one good use for instagram, its so brilliant I wish I could take the credit but I can’t…Just thought I’d share the love…since I wrote such a longwinded post about my dislike for the app. :)