Rush the Iceberg

Hipstamatic certainly seems daunting at first tap, especially if you want to make photocopies of your world.

I do not want to photocopy my world; rather, I want to tell stories. Stories have nuance, metaphor, and change along with us, just as a great picture should.

Hipstamatic helps me tell stories…stories I often did not see when I first took the picture.

I had Hipstamtic on my phone a year ago and was overwhelmed. I did not want to take the time to understand how it works because I had grown so used to the immediacey of most of the iPhone photo apps.

Then one day I noticed it on my phone and decided to take some pics with it at my old junior college…I immediately felt something special as I looked at the pictures: they looked like my world, yet now had texture, different colors, and personality. Two or three of the pictures are still my favorites while the rest are simply terrible!

That initial day, I randomly choose a combination of film and lense and started shooting. This is one of the pictures I came up with:

Photo: Stephen Davis

Sometimes you have to pick one combination and go for it…

Hipstamatic reminds me of when I was in high school, shooting black and white film for my photography class. I did not know until I was in the dark room if a picture came out good…The waiting was exciting, like Christmas Eve exciting! Hipstamatic comes close to this waiting and excitement, and to be honest, that is part of the joy of photography: waiting to see if you have captured a story, not a photocopy.

Photo: Stephen Davis

I then wanted to explore the app more, become fully immersed in its world. I remember parking in front of a tree while at the grocery store and took a picture with every single combination that comes standard with the app. It took maybe ten or fifteen minutes, but I learned a lot! Mainly I learned how to save certain combinations as favorites. You can find a great walk through HERE.

I also started buying all the lenses, films, and flashes I could. I use a minority of them, but I do like having them to try different things. In addition, I like the Hipstachallenge, although I have not done this everyday like I want to!

Hipstamatch helped me greatly to wrap my brain around the various combinations of film and lenses, I highly recommend it! Mark Bruce has an EPIC collection of all Hipstamatic combinations Star Wars fans will appreciate.  Additionally, Check out the blog Life In LoFi’s posts on Hipstamatic.

Here are my favorite combos…I try to use each combo for EVERY pic intake in Hipstamatic…I am starting to know which films capture amazing sky hues, which ones are great for brown scenes…

Photo: Stephen Davis