False Nostalgia

I took the above picture from my balcony whilst on Honeymoon. Its's taken with an iphone app called Hipstamatic, which replicates electronically what analogue cameras like the Lomo do, namely creates a sort of instant nostalgic feel to a picture. The press of a button gives you an automated, no talent required, dreamy snapshot, and gives otherwise mundane images a soupcon of artistic gravitas. Found an interesting article today that attempts to unravel the popularity of this sort of thing - namely that

"The faux-vintage photo is merely an illustrative example of a larger trend whereby social media increasingly force us to view our present as always a potential documented past."

3 comments:

Susan said...

On holiday earlier this year, the resort provided the usual array of stationery. The photos on the postcards must have been taken at least 30 years ago. They're intriguingly different from the modern equivalent - like something from a Sean Connery James Bond film. I brought a few back with me.

worm said...

I did something similar in ibiza susan, I ironically sent my friends some postcards I bought at our hotel featuring topless birds in 1980's fluoro bikinis...

zmkc said...

I think my daughter's been playing around with the same thing: www.annahiggie.blogspot.com
Thanks for the link to that article - looks fascinating. Really pleased to see your blog active again too. Will have to put it back on my looking at now list - it's such a good introduction to so many interesting things.