On Hipstamatic

Hipstamatic is a very popular iPhone photography or iPhoneography app. Unlike most iPhoneography apps however, it is built on the symbolic logic of physical toy cameras, with interchangeable "film" "lenses" and "flashes" offered in place of digital settings (numbers and sliding scales) to alter an image's appearance. Hipstamatic is a very popular app among users of Instagram and thus came up extensively in my On Instagram research.

Lately, Hipstamatic has become synonymous with a nostalgia/toy camera aesthetic movement that has begun visibly marking iPhone-photos as such. It's also been used by several "experienced" photographers who are "proving" the high photographic potential of the app.

I personally use Hipstamatic extensively, and in the past year have generally substituted it for my real camera (Canon DSLR) on every significant occasion.

Articles

 * The War in Hipstamatic - From Foreign Policy
 * Photographer Damon Winter of NY Times on Using Hipstamatic
 * Photography Critic on the Validity of Hipstamatic - NY Times
 * Scholar Nathan Jurgenson on "Faux Vintage Photo"