University of Copenhagen

Faculty of Humanities
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication
Course: The Precarious Aesthetics
Module: 6 - Users and digital communication
Curriculum: Media Studies (2008)
Instructor: Arild Fetveit
Spring 2013

INSTAGRAM, NOSTALGIA AND THE PRECARIOUS,

SOCIAL AND FILTERED PHOTOGRAPHIES

Antonio Monachello (fcb642)

curriculum: Media Studies (M.A.) 2008
mob.: 50146326
fcb642@alumni.ku.dk

Instagram, nostalgia and the precarious,

social and filtered photographies
Table of contents
1

1. Introduction

2. Research questions

3. Methodology

4. Strategy and method

5. Discussion with theory

12

6. Conclusion

12

References

14

Appendix - Questionnaire

15

Answers

Instagram, nostalgia and the precarious,

social and filtered photographies

1. INTRODUCTION
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, 1 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.
1 Oreskovic, Alexei and Shih, Gerry (2012, April 9) Facebook to buy Instagram for $1 billion http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/09/us-facebook-idUSBRE8380M820120409 Accessed on Apr 27,
2013

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.

2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Since the success of Instagram, where does its appeal and fascination lie? Why people use it?
Do those kind of "retro" digital filters cause sense of nostalgia? Moreover, can theories about
nostalgia enlighten us about this?

3. METHODOLOGY
Theory will be drawn from the debates about analogue and the more recent digital
photographic processes which shared both the paradox between truth and art, authenticity and
manipulation, before linking the discussion to the temporal aspect of photography, noise in
photography and nostalgia, by itself and related to photography, which will be also treated.
The theoretical background, which regards mainly photography, is supported by and discussed
alongside an empirical research. The latter was conducted with the purpose to investigate
Instagram users' attitudes, their perception and response to photographs uploaded by
themselves and/or other people. As a research method, six interviews among Instagram users
were conducted through social networks, with an open-response questionnaire.

4. STRATEGY AND METHOD

As stated above, this research aims to explore the aesthetic experiences lived by users of
Instagram (and digital photography in general) in a phenomenological and an ontological
perspective, rather than testing an hypothesis. Fetveit (2001) reminds us that we must realize
that it is as legitimate to describe an object as it is to describe how that object is experienced.
The social and linguistic aspects are also relevant.

Therefore, the research will employ the qualitative method of online self completion
questionnaire with open-responses (attached in the appendix), which may be well suited to
tap social agents perspective on the media and arrive at descriptions and typologies which
have implications for other, or larger, social systems.2
While the internal validity is guaranteed by exploring and comparing, for instance
informants' conceptual repertoires, [...] its external validity must [...] be left undecided. 3 A
more quantitative approach would not be useful since the scope of the research and the small
size of the sample, but could be implemented.
A total of six structured interviews were conducted on social networks among Instagramers.
The sampling was non-random. It is important to emphasise that 'non-randomness' in this
context is not meant negatively.4 The methods used comprised the theoretical sampling, in
which the researcher seeks out respondents who are most likely to aid theoretical
development5 and typical-case sampling, since the respondents were part of the age group in
which Instagram is used the most.6
The biggest disadvantages and challenges for this type of research is that it requires expertise
in technology from both interviewer and interviewees7, can be time consuming but on the
other hand responses are more thought out before they are sent 8, it facilitates a closer
connection with interviewee's personal feelings, beliefs, and values9 and encourages selfdisclosure.10
The interviews included the partial use of the technique of photo-elicitation using photographs
uploaded by the informant interviewed and by others. While seeking open-ended responses11,
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

Bruhn Jensen, Klaus (2011)

ibid.
Deacon et al. (2007:52)
ibid.
"By Gender: 68.2% Female, 31.8% Male. By Age: 23.5% Under 18, 34.4% 18-25, 30.7% 26-35, 8.2% 36-45,
2.1% 46-55, 1.0% Over 55. as of May 25, 2012" http://www.quora.com/Instagram/How-many-people-useinstagram Accessed on Aug 06, 2013
Meho, Lokman I. (2006)
ibid.
ibid.
ibid.
Deacon et al. (2007:65)

the discussions were guided also by images. Therefore the individual who describes the
images must be convinced that their take-for-granted understanding of the images is not
shared by the researcher. (Harper, in Prosser 1998:35)

5. DISCUSSION WITH THEORY

The link between Instagram and nostalgia has been traced by separate journalists online 12

13

but has not been thoroughly analysed yet, since digital photography has been discussed
particularly for its differences with analog, e.g. in quality, transmission, editing and the
presence of metadata (tags). Instagram's popularity has been motivated also by the capacity of
its filters to integrate stylistic flaws within the image, evoking a desired sense of nostalgia by
creating a sense of nostalgia for the present or immediate past. A false sense of nostalgia
since it is felt for something that in most cases could be very close in space and time to the
photographer/user.
But what is the current definition of nostalgia?
1: the state of being homesick: homesickness.
2: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or
irrecoverable condition; also: something that evokes nostalgia.14
Boym (2001:3) traces the historical root of the word in the medicine of the 17th century,
where it was said to produce "erraneous representations" that caused the afflicted to lose
touch with the present. Can the filters of Instagram be defined to produced erraneous
representations? For Sontag (1990), photographs actively promote nostalgia. Photography is
an elegiac art, a twilight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being
photographed, touched with pathos.

12 Crouch, Ian (2012, April 10) Instagrams Instant Nostalgia http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/04/instagrams-instant-nostalgia.html Accessed on Apr
27, 2013
13 Deese, Megan (2012, June 23) Instagram creates "false sense of nostalgia," shows disconnect from '70s.
http://www.redandblack.com/news/instagram-creates-false-sense-of-nostalgia-shows-disconnect-froms/article_54e13f30-bcd8-11e1-8949-0019bb30f31a.html Accessed on Apr 27, 2013
14 Nostalgia definition (n.d.) In Merriam Webster Online - http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/nostalgia Accessed on Apr 28, 2013

Instagram "camera"15

Instagram user's profile16

Before discussing Instagram and the emotions that the photos can evoke, it is important to
look at the previous studies. As Chalfen (in Prosser, 1998: 215) notes, systematic studies of
snapshot collections in particular and home photo-media in general [were] largely neglected.
[...] In general we have ignored the vast 'tradition' of personally made images, and we know
very little about relationships of photo-media and private symbolic worlds. He continues by
asking: what are ordinary people saying about themselves and their condition of human
existence? What can we learn about ourselves as social and cultural beings through studies of
photographs we make about and for ourselves?
The respondents of the research came from different cultural backgrounds and were relatively
young of age, between 22 and 28 years old. They take photos with their smartphones almost
daily but upload only a minority of them. Apart from the filters available to the users, the
15 Instagram Press Center - Official screenshot - http://instagram.com/press/ Accessed on Apr 26, 2013
16 ibid.

major reason to use Instagram is for them the easiness of sharing with friends:
It's just a nice way to share some particular moments. (int. #2.9)
Mostly because of the effects the have to choose from and how easy it is to share
photos with it. (int. #3.9)
To share photos with friends and keep up with people (int. #6.9)

but also to keep track of memories:

I actually don't know why I started using Instagram, in a certain why it's like
keeping a diary with very little effort, in the sense that it reminds me where I've
been, what I've seen, things I've done. [...] (int. #1.9)
I like to remember what I have been doing and keep them organised on there. (int.
#6.20)

Bazin (1967) with his mummy complex describes the eternalizing by means of the
photographic image and the fight between humans and the decay of time. Here time is fought
taking and uploading the photo, but could be also in the way it is treated and orchestrated
aesthetically before being uploaded.
For Metz (1985:84) a photograph is an instantaneous abduction of the object out of the world
into another world, into [...] an unfolding time similar to that of life, which works by cutting
a piece of the referent, for a long immobile travel of no return. He draws a comparison
between photography and death, both immediate and definitive. While comparing
photography to film, he argues that the former, by virtue of the objective suggestions of its
signifier (stillness, again), maintains the memory of the dead as being dead.
Sontag (1990:15) argues about this capacity of photography in similar terms: All
photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or
thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing
it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.
To view a photograph can also be to participate in another person's vulnerability. Only one
respondent set their photos to private (since they mostly portray her child), but privacy still
6

matters though. Not every moment lived, and then captured can be shared, even if modified
by filters:
[...] But it's not complete, clearly, since I can't upload everything about my life
there for privacy's reasons. (int. #1.9)

Aumont (1997:175) on the other hand argues that the issue is less the technological
possibility of freezing the visible than an opposition between two aesthetics, two ideologies of
the representation of time in a still image, which by itself has no inherent temporal
dimension. He posits a dyad between the pregnant versus the ordinary, moment: showing
the entire event to enhance its understanding versus showing only one moment, trying to be
true to what could plausibly have been seen by a witness at a given moment. 17 The ordinary
moment fascinated painters (odd prefiguring of the snapshot) for its authenticity, to the
detriment of meaning, with the aesthetics of the pregnant moment pursued by art photography.
What do the respondents capture with their smartphones? As it would be natural to think, the
world around them, landscapes, places, friends, [...] everything I find interesting around me,
like I'm searching for other points of view in my everyday routine. (int. #1.6)
The respondents usually tag their photos (i.e. comment the photos with keywords), but seldom
use borders and the blur. Filters are used in most cases. They offer particular visual qualities
which can be tentatively categorised, based on the way we want to represent our look 18, or, as
one respondent wrote, to match the mood I'm in and what I want the picture to express. (int.
#4.18)
While Bazin (1960) argues that photography freed Western painting from its obsession with
realism allowing it to recover its aesthetic ability, subjectivity seems nonetheless also
primary in digital photography. Even leaving digitality out [...], as Michaels (2005:447)
posits, we all know that the realism of the photograph -its ability to show us what really
happened, its ability to tell us the truth- is problematic. Moreover, the project of
establishing the intentionality of the photograph -a project made both possible and necessary
17 Aumont (1990:174)
18 Garber, Megan (2012, April 10) A Guide to the Instagram Filters You'll Soon Be Seeing on Facebook http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/a-guide-to-the-instagram-filters-youll-soon-beseeing-on-facebook/255650/ Accessed on May 2, 2013

only by the recognition that it needs to be established, that is not just there- becomes crucial to
the making of it.

Example of Instagram filters19

Therefore another link that could be traced lead to art, since those photographs show signs of
a precarious aesthetics which seem to expand their temporal side [employing] symptoms of
wear and tear and errors or malfunctions characteristic of specific media as deliberate means
of artistic expression.20
No one of the respondents believed to have the technical skills to be called a photographer,
except for one (Anders, int. #5) who indeed works as photographer. He uses Instagram mostly
as a playground to experiment.
[...] The longer back in time you go in my feed, you should see how my style
changes. I decided to leave all my old crappy pictures to show where I developed
from. (int. #5.10)

Writing about contemporary art, Bourriaud (2009:79) argues that by these new modes of
spatializing time, [it] produces forms that are able to capture this experience of the world
through practices that could be described as 'time-specific' and that lifespan of objects is
19 ibid.
20 Fetveit (2013)

becoming shorter and shorter, in a way similar to the amount of time we dedicate to each
photograph. Even though we could argue that taking, modifying and uploading a photo on
Instagram take less time, it is still time-consuming:
I prefer 1-2 good pictures a day. I think anything more on average would be
annoying for my followers. But also take too much time. (int. #5.7)

Nonetheless, even for the others the final product that comes from editing the picture is
important:
I just follow my taste, I like filters that look subtle and natural the most. (int.
#1.18)
What makes my picture looks better. (int. #2.18)

Moving the discussion toward emotions, the past and nostalgia, Aumont (1997:183) writes
about the past in the present in cinema utilising the "crystal-image" concept introduced by
Deleuze, a metaphor for the coexistence of a real image and a virtual one, the first present,
the other its contemporary in the past, the past-in-the-present. In this case the past of the
filters, effects and frames coexist, in reality and virtuality, with the present of the captured
photograph, which could only be seen by the photographer.
Instagram pictures try to simulate nostalgia for a time which probably many of the
photographers, since their young age, have never experienced. Using Baudrillard (2001:167)
words, to simulate is to feign to have what one hasn't. They try to fabricate the feeling of
old photographs in a few seconds by adding a texture of time, trying to influence the reception
of the temporal dimension of the photograph in its form and its content.
The respondents generally experience happiness, fun, interest, but ultimately it depends on the
mood when viewing (and when taking and editing the photo, for the ones uploaded by
themselves). More intimate emotions are not easily shared, but only one of them excludes
nostalgia when viewing her own photos:
I don't feel nostalgic, I think it's because I don't ever upload very intimate moments
from my life. (int. #1.22)

iek (1992), writing about cinema, discusses about nostalgia in opposition to pornography.
The latter shows everything registered with an objective camera, and knows we are
watching. To separate this gaze from us, we must turn toward to nostalgia, where instead we
have a gaze that is looking toward a distant and mythical past, not requiring our direct
participation. In a way the users on Instagram try to force their gaze when editing their
photos:
I almost always use them. Make them look cooler and to hide and play with what I
want to focus on (int. #4.15)
I try to highlight the subject matter, usually I brighten the picture because I am
always in the dark (int. #6.18)

Notwithstanding, the respondents tended to be to a certain extent more distant with the
photographs taken by the others when they could not identify, so that the content of the photo
still remain primary for the viewer in order to feel nostalgic:
Sometimes it may happen when a friend that I haven't seen from long time uploads
a photo of himself, alone or with other people. Or when someone uploads photos of
places I've been or I'd like to go. (int. #1.23)
with some users yes. These are mostly my favourite bloggers, when I see their
instagram pics again on their blogs (int. #6.23)

Hainge (2005) argues that nostalgia with digital media is no longer simply a return to the
past [but] becomes a premonition of the future also, a noisy proclamation that todays PC is
tomorrows typewriter. For Boym (2007) technology that once promised to bridge modern
displacement and distance and provide the miracle prosthesis for nostalgic aches has itself
become much faster than nostalgic longing. In a way employing digital technology to deny
the crude objectivity it may be associated with:
I use filters most of the times, just because make my photos less horrible. (int.
#2.15)

Signifiers of the different qualities in analogue photography are now encoded in digital form
so that users can create a precarious aesthetics of digital imprecision and analogue nostalgia,

10

combining visual signs of time and medium to generate the feeling of having produced
something distinctive through these imprecisions. For Greenberg (1960), the unique and
proper area of competence of each art coincided with all that was unique in the nature of its
medium.
Nevertheless, as Bolter (2000:66) argues, the electronic medium is not set in opposition to
painting, photography, or printing; instead, the computer is offered as a new means of gaining
access to these older materials, as if the content of the older media could simply be poured
into the new one. Since the electronic version justifies itself by granting access to the older
media, it wants to be transparent.
The respondents considered digital photos not less or more real:
They are just as real. I shoot both film and digital. I would never bring a film
camera to shoot pictures from a client. Film is purely for artistic side (int. #1.17)

though it is not really the case for the low fidelity photos that a smartphone can take:
I consider digital photos proper photos, but I consider photos taken with an actual
camera (doesn't matter if it's digital or not) more "important" because the ones taken
with the phone are not hi-fi when seen on a big screen and this bothers me. (int.
#1.17)

Reprising Bazin, if humans try to fight the decay of time, at the same time, as Fetveit (2013)
highlights, even with digital media they developed means of strategy of mortality adopted by
analogue media, to communicate the fact that digital media are subject to decay as well. One
respondent (naively, to a certain extent) answered that while analog photos are forever,
digital photos on Instagram [will] lose their importance really soon. (int. #2.17)
Lastly, drawing from studies that have addressed medium-specific noise in music (Auner,
2000), we could speak of domesticated, social visual filters, compared to the domestication
of noise in music (Navas, 2012).

11

6. CONCLUSION
Whilst on one hand it seems more simple to study snapshots since they are more public than
ever, the personal significances still lie in the mind of the person who took (and this case
uploaded) the photo, so that is still important to actively ask questions.
Paraphrasing William Faulkner, Boym (2007) writes that the past of nostalgia is not even
past. It could be merely better time, or slower time time out of time, not encumbered by
appointment books. The imperfect reification of imaginative states by Instagram users seem
to reflect both the refusal to surrender to time and the need to be recognised.
Moreover, this could may also be defined as a fading trend, but still the synthesis in those
photographs of what could appear as authentic and, at the same time, simulated realities bring
along issues of nostalgia and memory, as well as photography's contradictory nature of
recorder of (to remember) real memories and of fabricator of new ones.

References
Aumont, Jacques (1997) The Image. London: BFI Publishing. pp. 148-241
Auner, Joseph (2000) Making Old Machines Speak: Images of Technology in Recent Music,
in ECHO: a music-centered journal, Volume 2 Issue 2 (Fall 2000)
Bazin, Andr (1967) The Ontology of the Photographic Image. What is Cinema? Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Baudrillard, Jean (2001) Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Edited by Mark Poster.
Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 119-147, 166-184, 207-219
Bolter, Jay David. (2000) Remediation and the Desire for Immediacy. Convergence, March
2000 vol. 6 no. 1: 62-71.
Bourriaud, Nicolas (2009) The Radicant. New York: Lukas & Sternberg. pp. 79-107
Bruhn Jensen, Klaus (ed.) (2011) A handbook of media and communication research,
qualitative and quantitative methodologies. London: Routledge. pp. 1-66, 186-218,
237-301
12

Bull, Stephen (2010) Photography. New York: Routledge. pp 5-100

Boym, Svetlana (2001) The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic books. pp 3-74
Boym, Svetlana (2007), Nostalgia and its Discontents, The Hedgehog Review 9:2 (Summer
2007), pp. 718
Deacon, David, Michael Pickering, Peter Golding, and Graham Murdock (2007) Researching
Communications: a Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis.
London/New York: Arnold/Oxford University Press. pp. 1-137, 193-247
Fetveit, Arild (2001) Antiessentialism and Reception Studies. In Defense of the Text.
International Journal of Cultural Studies. June 2001, vol. 4 no. 2: 173-199
Fetveit, Arild (2013) Medium-Specific Noise. In Liv Hausken (Ed.), Thinking Media
Aesthetics. Frankfurt: Peter Lang (forthcoming)
Greenberg, Clement (1960) Modernist Painting. Forum Lectures. Washington, D. C.: Voice of
America
Hainge, Greg (2005) No(i)stalgia: On the impossibility of recognising noise in the present. In
Culture, Theory and Critique, 2005, 46(1): 1-10.
Kracauer, S. (1975) The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press (first published 1927)
Lutticken, Sven (2004) Undead Media. in Afterimage, Vol. 31, No. 4
Meho, Lokman I. (2006) E-mail interviewing in qualitative research: a methodological
discussion. In Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 2006, Vol.57, pp. 1284-1295
Metz, Christian (1985) Photography and Fetish. In October, Vol 34: 81-90
Michaels, Walter Benn (2005) Photographs and Fossils. In Photography Theory (The Art
Seminar) Edited by James Elkins. pp. 431-450. New York: Routledge
Navas, Eduardo (2012) Remix Theory: The Aesthetics of Sampling. New York: Springer. pp.
161-173
Prosser, Jon (ed.) (1998) Image-based research London: Falmer Press. pp. 9-234
Sontag, Susan (1990) On Photography. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 3-24, 52-111, 116-133
iek, Slavoj (1992) Looking awry. New York: MIT Press pp. 107-122

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APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Name
2. Age
3. Nationality
4. Username on Instagram
5. How many pictures do you have on your Instagram account?
6. How often do you take photos?
7. How often do you upload photos?
8. Do you consider yourself a photographer?
9. Why do you use Instagram?
10. What kinds of photos do you have on your Instagram?
11. Are you photos private? If yes, why did you make your photos private?
12. Do you usually tag your photos?
13. Do you use borders?
14. Do you use the blur?
15. Do you use filters when uploading photos on Instagram? How often and why?
16. Do you use a filter more than the others? Why?
17. Do you consider digital photos less or more real?
18. What guides you when choosing a filter?
19. For what reasons you take and upload photos on Instagram?
20. What kind of emotions can you generally define when looking at a photo on Instagram
that you have uploaded?
21. What kind of emotions can you generally define when looking at a photo on Instagram
that someone else has uploaded?
22. Do you ever feel nostalgic for photos you have uploaded?
23. Do you ever feel nostalgic for photos someone else has uploaded?

14

ANSWERS
#1
1. Giulia
2. 23
3. Italian
4. "jsantisbelloni"
5. 62
6. Since when I bought a smartphone I take photos more often then I did before, I take
pictures of everything I find interesting around me, like I'm searching for other points of view
in my everyday routine.
7. I upload photos without following a pattern, when I find that a picture could be interesting
for others and it's not too intimate I upload it.
8. I have not the technical skills to call myself a photographer.
9. I actually don't know why I started using Instagram, in a certain why it's like keeping a
diary with very little effort, in the sense that it reminds me where I've been, what I've seen,
things I've done. But it's not complete, clearly, since I can't upload everything about my life
there for privacy's reasons.
10. I upload mostly urban panoramas from where I live, things I see everyday that could have
hidden in them a lyrical element. Other picture includes me, my boyfriend, my cat, and the
vegan recipes I recently started cooking.
11. No, they're public. I can't see the utility of a private Instagram, one could just upload
photos on his Facebook or keep them for himself.
12. I don't usually tag my photos because it makes me feel a little bit stupid.
13. I don't like borders.
14. Sometimes I do, but not quite often since the results appears to me very "artificial".
15. Sometimes I do, but just when I find the one that's actually nice on the single photo: this
doesn't happen very often.
16. I use Valencia more often, I just like the subtle light that can improve how a too dark
photo looks.
17. I consider digital photos proper photos, but I consider photos taken with an actual camera
(doesn't matter if it's digital or not) more "important" because the ones taken with the phone
are not hi-fi when seen on a big screen and this bothers me.
15

18. I just follow my taste, I like filters that look subtle and natural the most.
19. I don't take photos just to upload them on Instagram, except for the ones of my cooking
because is something that makes me very proud!
20. Sometimes I'm surprised about how smart and funny I can look from the outside, it's just
strange that no one seems to notice that...
21. I'm very little interested in things other people usually upload, but I like some panoramas.
I look at them because I'm bored and I don't know what to do.
22. I don't feel nostalgic, I think it's because I don't ever upload very intimate moments from
my life.
23. Sometimes it may happen when a friend that I haven't seen from long time uploads a
photo of himself, alone or with other people. Or when someone uploads photos of places I've
been or I'd like to go.

#2
1. Fabio
2. 27
3. Italian
4. brokeone
5. 215
6. I don't know... It depends.
7. I don't know... It depends.
8. No.
9. It's just a nice way to share some particular moments.
10. Landscapes, something related to music, my girlfriend's dog, stuff like that.
11. No.
12. Rarely.
13. No.
14. Sometimes.
15. I use filters most of the times, just because make my photos less horrible.
16. I go random, looking for what I like more for that picture.
17. Analog photos are forever, digital photos on Instagram lose their importance really soon.
18. What makes my picture looks better.
16

19. In my opinion it's just the fastest way to share your pics on every social network.
20. Happiness, probably.
21. Envy every time someone uploads photos from the beach.
22. It can happen, especially when I look at my holiday's photos.
23. No...

#3
1. Johanna
2. Age: 28
3. Icelandic
4. johannaarnad
5. 204
6. Almost daily.
7. 0-7 times a week.
8. No.
9. Mostly because of the effects the have to choose from and how easy it is to share photos
with it.
10. Mostly of my baby.
11. Yes, they are. I want to know who is looking at them.
12. No, but I sometimes do.
13. Sometimes.
14. No.
15. Yes, most of the time I do. To make them brighter if they are dark or make them nicer.
16. Rise, Valencia, Sierra and Low-fi. They make the photos brighter and frame them if that is
what I want.
17. The same.
18. No special guides.
19. To share them with friends and family
20. I am happy as they show snapshots of my baby.
21. Fun, happy, interested.
22. Yes I do.
23. No, never.
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#4
1. Krisztina
2. 25
3. Hungarian
4. adjams
5. 80
6. once in a month
7. once in a month
8. no way
9. I like visual expression and it takes me closer to people's own visual style
10. mostly places and tables
11. they are not private
12. I tag places
13. I don't know how to use them...
14. same...
15. I almost always use them. Make them look cooler and to hide and play with what I want to
focus on
16. No, I randomly choose
17. That'd be a deep discussion what is real and what not.
18. To match the mood I'm in and what I want the picture to express
19. First of all for my own pleasure, I don't have many followers and I don't wanna have them
either
20. depends on my current mood
21. I find them all so inspiring!
22. definitely.
23. with some users yes. These are mostly my favourite bloggers, when I see their instagram
pics again on their blogs

#5
1. Anders
2. 22
18

3. Danish
4. ankjaers
5. About 670
6. I take photos every single day.
7. I prefer 1-2 good pictures a day. I think anything more on average would be annoying for
my followers. But also take too much time.
8. Yes.
9. I think the community there is amazing. Earlier I used Flickr where I posted my DSLR
images, but that feels like a ghost town compared to Instagram.
10. I change. The longer back in time you go in my feed, you should see how my style
changes. I decided to leave all my old crappy pictures to show where I developed from.
11. No.
12. Most of the time yes.
13. No, I dont like borders.
14. Not as an effect. I do post images from my camera that can do real blur. I think that gives
a much better image.
15. I use several filters in a combo. It's to give the photos an effect or mood in the same way I
would do in photoshop on my computer.
16. I use many different apps so no.
17. They are just as real. I shoot both film and digital. I would never bring a film camera to
shoot pictures from a client. Film is purely for artistic side
18. It really depends. I mainly just do what I think would look great. I don't have any secret
tips to share.
19. It's a playground to experiment. And to connect with other like minded people.
20. My pictures reflect my emotion at the time I took the image, but also when I edited it.
21. I follow some really cool people in Ig. Most of the time they make me go out and shoot
even more pictures.
22. Yeah.
23. Yes.

#6
1. Angels
19

2. 23
3. Spanish
4. partes_extra_partes
5. 824
6. Every day
7. Almost every day
8. No
9. To share photos with friends and keep up with people
10. Pictures of things I do, art exhibitions, friends, and vomit.
11. No
12. Yes
13. Never
14. not normally, only if I am bored and playing around with pictures
15. Yes, on every photo pretty much, it's easy on the screen
16. Usually either Amaro, Rise, or Valencia because they make the photo look lighter
17. Neither, the same
18. I try to highlight the subject matter, usually I brighten the picture because I am always in
the dark
19. Many friends have the app
20. I like to remember what I have been doing and keep them organised on there.
21. I judge whether they are cool or not based on their photos. Sometimes they make me
laugh and other times I feel hatred.
22. Maybe if it has been a couple of weeks I can look back at my photos chronologically.
23. No

20