Instagram: gimmicky retro filter-fest or serious social network? Time Magazine seems to thing it’s the latter, and despatched five pro photographers to go out and shoot the aftermath of super-storm Sandy with their iPhones, posting the results to Time’s Instagram feed.
Michael Christopher Brown, Benjamin Lowy, Ed Kashi, Andrew Quilty and Stephen Wilkes were asked to “document the hurricane and its aftermath via Instagram.” The results are, as you might expect, stunning.
The iPhone might not let you swap lenses, and it might not even be that easy to hold, but its camera is more than capable and in the right hands it is easily a good enough tool. Take the shot above, snapped by Michael Christopher Brown. It has all the composition and timing of a great documentary shot. The fact that it was shot on an iPhone is relevant perhaps only because it is so easy to share the images.
Some of Time’s photos do have filters applied, and Benjamin Lowy’s amazing Cartier Bresson-esque shot of a man stepping over a puddle even has a Polaroid frame applied. But that’s really beside the point here. The iPhone is as real a camera as you want it to be.
Source: Time
