How to use Instagram
Posted: 04/04/2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Facebook, filters, how to, how to take pictures, Instagram, iPhone, the sky, Twitter 3 Comments »Instagram is great. For those who don’t already know (and Blackberry owners), Instagram is a photo sharing application that lets users take pictures, add filters and share with their friends. Instagram is to pictures what The Edge’s effects pedals are to his guitar playing.
Now it’s finally launched on Android, it’s only a matter of time before Instagram becomes horrendously passé. In the future our kids will ask, ‘but you were the generation that pioneered digital photography! How come granddad’s pictures are better than this grainy toss?’ So make the most of it while you can.
The good news is that it doesn’t take much to become a pro Instagramer – or iPhoneographer as some have dared christen themselves. Here’s how it’s done:
Throw plenty of shit at the wall
Instagram’s all about quantity over quality. It’s like Twitter in that you’re far more likely to get a response provided you saturate your feed with an assortment of the non-events you pursue in your free time. It might be some decorating you’ve done; a muddy bike after a long ride; or the dead prostitute you’ve woken up next to in a cold, blood-smeared room at a Travelodge. The options are endless. Eventually the insipid photography you’ve chosen to represent your dreary life will be ratified via a few likes. You’ve made it! Why not put on an exhibition?
Keep it stock
There are some basics you’ve got to master before anyone will take you seriously in the ruthless world of Instagramography. You can take a picture of any old crap and it’s passable once you’ve layered a filter over the top. Exposed brickwork is always popular. Urban decay is so hot right now. Whatever you had for dinner is a great one. Cats in boxes. The sky! As humans it’s easy to overlook the great firmament that looms over us 24/7, so make sure you take a picture of it doing something slightly different than the thing it did 15 minutes ago. Remember the mantra: Red sky at night, Instagramer’s delight. Red sky at morning? Yeah, fuck it. Take a picture of that as well.
Filter into oblivion
That picture of a nondescript, poorly lit alleyway that tramps defecate down won’t impress anyone. But add a little X-pro II magic to the mix, with a twist of tilt-shift and BAM! You’re now your own self-facilitating Tumblr blog! Have you thought about doing band photography? ‘Cos you’re like, a pro or something! You were always quite artistic, but your parents made you do business studies because art is for wastrels. Watch the likes roll in. You’ve finally been recognised for your vision. Don’t touch me, bro. I’m framing my next Instagram shot.
Add a pretentious title
Once you’ve layered your picture with more filters than the Brita factory, it’s time to label them with painfully overambitious titles. This is your chance to unleash your inner artist. Don’t just call it ‘A Window’. Call it something like ‘A crestfallen portal that looks into the deepest chasm of my empty, empty soul’ or ‘Life is a decaying plastic Ikea chair that’s been discarded in a skip and crapped on by pigeons’. Failing that, title it after any of the books by the philosophers you learnt, and subsequently forgot about at uni. Go deep!
Are you using Instagram? Does the Android launch signal the end? What Instagram staples piss you off? Do tell.
Luke Lewis, the NME and the irresistible rise of Ed Sheeran
Posted: 16/01/2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: #howshitisedsheeran, apology, Brit Awards, Ed Sheeran, Facebook, Luke Lewis, NME, Twitter 7 Comments »
It pains me to side with an artist as innocuous as Ed Sheeran. I’ve never listened to an entire song, but the 15 seconds I have heard have been enough to indicate that he’s far from being my cup of tea.
However, a sold out tour, triple platinum album and a handful of Brit nominations would indicate that he does have a few fans. And that’s fine for most of us, but not for the NME’s online editor Luke Lewis, who last week decided that his disdain for Mr Sheeran had reached a zenith.
I can understand it must be frustrating being Luke Lewis. When us plebs hear an artist we dislike, we avert our gaze. Whereas Luke has to not only endure the streams of tepid piss that come shooting through the NME letterbox, but he’s often asked to write favourably about it.
Not content with fulfilling his role of informing 14 year olds who they should listen to, Luke felt that his contempt toward Ed Sheeran needed galvanising via a Twitter and Facebook campaign. The campaign of hate was imaginatively titled ‘How Shit Is Ed Sheeran?’, and came with a corresponding hashtag that would allow Luke to compile his results into a in-depth report due today. The campaign garnered some truly gut-busting responses, the best of which were retweeted on the NME’s twitter page. Sadly, they’ve since been deleted. Indicative of a guilty conscience? Or backtracking for fear of alienating quite a hefty number of their readership? Both?
Now matter how you feel about Ed Sheeran, you have to admit that what Luke Lewis did was somewhat churlish. Not content with rating Ed Sheeran’s debut album and moving on, Luke and the NME retweeted bile without getting their own hands dirty. Their actions were tantamount to cyberbullying, despite Lewis’s protestations that his #HowShitIsEdSheeran campaign was, ‘Just a bit of Twitterfun’ (spoken like a true bully).
I viewed the activities of Luke and the NME as a desperate attempt to jump on a bandwagon of hatred; an effort to claw back some credibility in a climate of music, abundant with blogs and message boards. But it doesn’t work like that when the musicians you chastise one week, you venerate the next. Furthermore, when that chastising is done on a national scale, the ginger-bashing’s quite pathetic, and wholly irresponsible.
Besides, having a publication as tired and irrelevant as the NME branding something as ‘shit’ is like the ocean calling rain ‘wet’. Lest we forget that the NME once trumpeted Viva Brother as ‘the future of guitar music’.
Update: Luke Lewis has since issued an apology on his Facebook page.
