In recent years the utilisation of digital processes in photography has surpassed that of analog ones. Once confined to the apparatus of the camera, now photographs can be taken with mobile phones. Social networks and Internet in general intensified the possibility for sharing the gaze into each other's mundane moments. At the same time, digital photo editing can be 
easily computed by a phone, so that now million of users day after day take, modify and upload their pictures with or without information accompanying them. 
 
In Kracauer's (1995:58) terms, “never before has an age been so informed about itself, if being informed means having an image of objects that resembles them in a photographic sense.” These processes expanded the potentiality of snapshot photography, a “move from the domestic space to wider contexts”, and “from the silent majority to the loud majority of photography.” (Bull, 2010:100) 
 
Instagram, the recent fad in mobile photo applications, provides a way to take photos, tweak their appearance with "retro filters" (e.g. film scratches, burnt or overdeveloped film), and share them on social networks with friends, family and strangers. Launched in October 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012 for a billion dollars, Instagram now has 100 million monthly active users uploading 40 million photos per day according to their press center page. 
 
This paper will examine the way in which photographers may seek to counter the digital flawlessness through the utilisation of Instagram filters. As Fetveit (2013) highlights, “technologies are developed to enhance and artificially produce such medium-specific noises and malfunctions. This situation calls for an exploration of what these medium-specific noises afford, and how the emergence of the aesthetics of medium-specific noise can be explained.” 
 
This paper will broadly explore the Instagram phenomenon, as it will seem clear by the set of research questions and theory presented. The different strains of the topic in this paper relate therefore to the discussions about photography and social activity, digital photography and nostalgia, and the issue of digital photography compared to analog photography. The synthesis 
between "authenticity" and "construction" of (in this case digital) photographs will be also analysed, leading to an initial discussion on how and to what extent the users, both as photographers and as viewers, are engaged in this issue.

Instagram, Nostalgia and The Precarious, Social and Filtered Photographies PDF

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