The New York Times Skimmer readers can choose from seven different layouts, of which most are based on a grid-based design or ranked according to the recommendations of the New York Times’ editorial team.

We are big fans already and look forward to seeing other publications follow suit…

On the digital front, we’ve witnessed the growth of apps such as Hipstamatic for the iPhone and Vignette for Android, which have infiltrated social networks and image sharing sites alike. On the analogue side, we’ve seen the rise of the Impossible Project, Lomography and the return of Polaroid.

We asked two photographers to discuss the popular app, Hipstamatic:

Christa, Rhiannon, you’re live on Google Wave. Tell us your thoughts on Hipstamatic.

Christa: I’m pretty much addicted to the Hipstamatic app for iPhone. To be sure, I also love the original Holga and Polaroid it is trying to imitate, but hey guess what, this is the digital age and we like it fast, instantaneous, we want to put it on Facebook 20 seconds after we make the photo. We also like free, the free freedom of the Internet. I know the argument for the real thing, but what about making room for this new thing? It’s the time we live in. We either surrender to change or get made obsolete fighting it…

Rhiannon: For me, it’s like a slap in the face.

When the world is becoming more and more ephemeral, and as Facebook is becoming the only way to get in touch with people, no one seems bothered that the “original” is lost, that the “real thing” is ceasing to exist.

I wouldn’t care about Hipstamatic if it wasn’t trying to imitate a real thing, and by imitating it, is killing it. If it were a nice little sideline, a gimmick that had no consequence to me, and my work, then I wouldn’t care.

I don’t think real pictures are redundant or obsolete- and they certainly won’t be when your hard drive crashes, and I’m sitting smug with my real pictures, letters and real wood furniture.

Christa: Look, the Hipstamatic app isn’t taking anything away from your deep analogue knowledge of film and the creative things you do with it.
I’m saying they’re just two totally different things. In fact, it should make you feel secure about the merits and amazingness of film just by the fact that the Hipstamatic is always just trying to imitate an original.

In no way do I think the Hipstamatic could ever replace analogue film, the process of developing film, the waiting time from when you click the exposure and when you actually hold the tangible print in your hands, no way! There’s no replacement for that. However, there is the idea that it’s just something else.

Rhiannon: Can I just point out that it is extremely ironic that I am a Polaroid photographer: instant photography and you are talking about how I am involved in the slow process of film? That’s not me; I am all about the instant. That’s exactly what defines it. I get a finished photo seconds after I shoot and I bet that most digital photographers can’t say the same. As I mentioned before the focus has changed from creating in camera, to editing in post. Just like Hipstamatic…

Christa: I am embracing the idea that yes, everyone is a photographer. Every Tom Dick and Harry can take a picture. Why not make it easy for them? Do you feel threatened by that? I don’t. I don’t feel threatened because I know I am a trained, experienced photographer and artist and that that is the difference. It makes me work harder, think more about the images I put out and I like that challenge of being like, yea everyone can take a picture, but why are my pictures different from that person who uses only a point and shoot, only their mobile phone, etc.

Rhiannon: I think digital lacks that kind of poetry. I wouldn’t call Hipstamatic photography, when I define photography as the recording of time. It’s a sign of the times, yes, but the way each picture turns out?

Christa: There is romance for me in this instantaneousness of it, in this conversation back and forth that I can have with people all over the world, yes, instantaneously. I am so into this digital life and I am so rolling with all the possibilities it has already created and continues to offer. I can say that yes I kind of need this as much as you need all that slow romance with film and Polaroids.

I also take issue with you saying that digital can’t be art or Hipstamatic can’t be art, for that matter. Art isn’t just the object, isn’t just the tangible thing, it’s very much the idea, the process and so much more than the image. I have a friend, Elly Clarke, who made an amazing photographic series of photos she made in India all on her Sony Ericsson mobile phone. I think that is an amazing project, digital, and yes on a shitty mobile phone. Would you say that her project isn’t capital “A” Art?

Rhiannon: As for Elly, yes I do know her. I would say the concept is art, but I wouldn’t call the photos “photography”, or at least not in the sense that I am trying to explain… I don’t think that is the point of her project. Yes, she is recording images, but I think that is more of a conceptual project to do with the reception of those images.

In a photographic sense and artistic sense, what possible merit could a computer algorithm applied to a bad phone picture have on the art or photographic world? It’s no great shakes…. It’s nothing new really. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and Hipstamatic certainly has not gotten to a point where it could accurately emulate film – I actually disagree with you, Christa, that digital is as good, or equal to film.

Christa: I respect your belief that art is what you say it is, but I also resent you telling me that art cannot be made by something like the Hipstamatic.

This is all going in the direction of: you feel threatened. You keep saying that you’re afraid digital is going to make film disappear. 


I don’t know, think about vinyl. It’s still here. What about that?

Rhiannon: If you look at stats to see what vinyl is available versus what vinyl was available in its heyday, then you would see why vinyl enthusiasts bemoaned CDs!

Christa: yes, I see, you are vinyl, and I am so excited by the invention of mp3s!

Rhiannon: I feel threatened by the death of the medium I love. Like I wail at the death of letters, and loathe the rise of text speak. I’m a audited, a born machine breaker… Digital is great for what it’s good for, and what it is not good for is what my photography is about- making images into objects. 


Earlier you said you would have lots of your images on the net if your hard drive crashed, me too- the difference being that if my originals died, the ones on the internet may as well vanish too- they wouldn’t be real anymore. There would be no original in a shoe box… for me there is no image without an original, regardless of whether pixels exist in its place. The essence of that image has gone. Hence why I never sell originals, ever.

Christa: Here again is a big point where we disagree, the idea of “the real.” At this stage in the history of the world, I really don’t know what “real” is and I don’t think anyone can tell me, nor am I that concerned with this concept.

Rhiannon: Whether it happens now, or in two years time, Polaroid will completely die out because it has been usurped by inferior technology that tries to imitate it, and because people have gotten lazy about taking pictures. How many photographers do you see composing photos without even looking through the viewfinder- holding cameras above their heads? To me, that isn’t “photography” in the skilled sense. There is a difference between amateur and pro photography- you agree, I know.

Christa: Maybe or maybe not… I’m sure people have said that about vinyl records and they are definitely not going anywhere soon. 

But if you think about what’s happened to Kodak as a company– they said ‘we will never go digital’ and look what’s happened to them? I think fighting technology and change is futile and ultimately self-destructive.

“… then what is the difference between what I do, and Hipstamatic or Poladroid?”

First, Rhiannon, I’ve said this over and over and over again in this thread: EVERYTHING. These two things are not the same!

Rhiannon: Hipstamatic is fun, but that is it- I do see it as entirely worthless as a creative medium- what does it do any different than importing a pic into Photoshop and then playing with it to create an x-pro effect? You have been able to do that for 10 years and that has never set the world alight with it’s artistic genius, so why would this?

I believe art could be made from digital phone pictures, yes, but Hipstamatic, no.

Christa: Disagree. Again, not having an argument about what is Art. I don’t believe this is an institution that declares one thing art and the other thing Art. Nor do I believe there is an Art Police. And if there is Art Police, well I am a law breaker.

Rhiannon: It’s just sad that digital can’t accept it’s digital and wants to encroach on analogue too. Analogue never tried to be digital, why does digital insist on trying to imitate analogue? Like, for example, why is there a “film grain” filter on Photoshop – why bother? If you want film, shoot film, if you don’t want film, shoot digital.

Christa: Disagree. I don’t think digital wants to be anything but what it is.

Rhiannon: And it copies film effects why? Because somehow, there is the notion that something that invokes film is somehow organic, unpredictable and romantic. If it is not an organic process, why try to invoke one?

Christa: why not?

Rhiannon: For me, daily I get two types of comments:

1. “Wow what’s that, that’s an old camera- can you still get film for that” (yes, what a surprise, on eBay)

2. “Wow how did you get your Hipstamatic to come up with those cool colours?” or “What app is that?”

Christa: Again, I say: Who cares what people think? Isn’t’ it enough to know yourself what you’ve done? I mean do you need to prove something? That’s cool if you do, I don’t get it though.

Rhiannon: What is real is what is held in your hands….

Christa: Ummm, I don’t think that thing your hands is any more real than the thought I am having in my head right now. Do you?

Rhiannon: Why bother taking images then at all, digital or otherwise if we can just imagine things. Why would it matter if we were blind?

Christa: Good point. One of my favourite cousins who spent many years in AA recovering from alcoholism once said to me as we stared out at a breathtaking view of the ocean, he said, “Look at this view. Close your eyes and remember this.

It will stay longer than a photograph.” And I love thinking about that moment and I think he’s right, I wont forget that landscape. And I think of it often in our digital fleeting world to take my time and really see things instead of watching them flicker by.

Christa: I get that you’re afraid that Polaroid will disappear. I get that. I am sad about it too. I just don’t think it’s a reason to attack the possibility of new, different things.

Rhiannon: Is it not? I think it is a very good reason, particularly when that thing is not new, or different. I am not attacking all digital, just digital methods that try to emulate analogue. I can’t see what is different, or new about Hipstamatic, except that you can make a bad image look “cool”. As the title suggests, the “Hipstas” like it.

Christa: Then you haven’t read my arguments – especially at the beginning. I have said what’s new and different a thousand times. It’s new cause it is. It’s different cause it is i.e., it’s not Polaroid or Holga or Diana, it’s Hipstamatic.

Rhiannon: You can achieve all that Hipstamatic does, and better, with high resolution negatives shot on film- so what is new and different about it? Other than that it is easy for people to do, and you don’t need to know how to cheat on Photoshop.

Christa: I think the summary of our conversation is this:

Christa and Rhiannon disagree on the question “What is Art?” as well as disagree on the concept of “the Real.”

Christa believes in situating Photography within an Art context, Rhiannon does not.

Christa believes in the importance of analogue AND digital. Rhiannon only believes in analogue.

Christa likes the Hipstamatic as well as all of its analogue predecessors, Rhiannon thinks the Hipstamatic is the devil’s spawn.


 Christa is excited by all the possibilities of our digital future and believes so much Art will be made within it!

The end.

Rhiannon: Ha, I like your summary.

Christa: thanks! I tried…

—

And so the debate over digital versus analogue goes on. There are those who argue for the purity of crafting with instant film and very little post-processing, and those who embrace the possibilities of all mediums including digital.

What are your thoughts?

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