photo finish.

The freaks come out at night 

-Whodini, 1984.

They are everywhere. It becomes even more apparent as the sun goes down. Around every corner, like some sort of stock footage from a James Whale film from the 1930's. Harsh shadows and chiaroscuro emitting from intense low-key lighting. This neo-human race is addicted to their pocket lining lives.

Although I've been providing bus loads of locals with them for years, I only recently took the plunge into the whole smartphone game. Their whole presence seemed to interfere with common direct, daily interaction with others, as every few minutes of seemingly normal connection would become interrupted by a technological commercial break, a phenomena one of my good friends refers to as phone time. For a while it seemed like something I could do without, but I too caved or, as one could attest, caught up to the new evolution of our species.

The cultural edict of today that flushes with so-called smart technology is the need to personalize everything. In the process of marking my territory and mentally pissing all over this new device, I kept coming face-to-face with a bit of a nemesis: Instagram.

Instagram. For some time my initial thoughts were, oh great, look everyone's a photographer now. Take your garbage pictures, then pimp them out to within an inch of their life, using editing tools to give the distinct impression that you've actually got some talent. I know this is territorial snap judgment of artists who are overwhelmed with examples of having less and less meaning in the world, when it appears everyone can do what you do.

I have felt this in the past within all of the things that I value about myself, whether as an artist, a writer, a lover, a man ... or so forth. I know it comes from my childhood, when nothing was ever good enough for the masters of the house. I know it comes from being the quiet one, the reserved one, the one that few have 'gotten' over time and who would define me in those precise, inaccurate ways. I didn't spring from a particularly positive, encouraging environment, but one built on fear, paranoia, and sadness, so I suppose one shouldn't be too surprised what hurdles have existed.

As a kid, I was given the impression that our culture was created from specialists, from well trained, apprenticed folks whose last names echoed their lot in life. As our culture has matured into the twenty-first century it has grown apparent with the expansion of the internet as the key resource in most households that everyone can quickly become an expert in anything. There was once was a time when one actually had to hire a photographer. Now everyone IS one.

Through the nineties there was a big push in Hollywood, by the likes of auteur Martin Scorsese to make sure that the home versions of classic and contemporary films were being properly restored and seen in full widescreen format. I still hear to this day complaints from people about the black bars on the TV, denoting the complete aspect is being maintained.

Simultaneously a perk and a drawback of Instagram is the fact that the final images are perfect squares, so the best part of your pics are seen, which can easily remove key content from your image.

There's a major difference between the photography one might frame above their fireplace in their living room, and the slew of madness that shows up on any given page of this techno application. To a point this is the made for television version of photography. What I have resolved is that Instagram is not photography, in the clear sense of the word. It's a whole other pop art form, a Polaroid instant camera for the current generation. As it's entirely a public space, it's Polaroid without all of the mystique and secrecy. And dammit, if I'm not addicted to it now.