Hipstography.com
Eric Rozen of Hipstography tells us how the website came to be and his goals for the community
Hipstamatic is the ONly photography application I use. I love the way it looks, its rebellious spirit, its edgy, unpredictable side, and of course the results it produces. Thanks to Hipstamatic, I have rediscovered my love of photography. I would go so far as to say that Hipstamatic has changed my life considerably, day-to-day. Since I have been using it, I have been traveling the world more and more, with the sole purpose of taking pictures.
I am not a big fan of editing images and I have no desire to spend ages changing a photo using the myriad of apps available on the market. Hipstamatic does not produce perfect pictures, but that is precisely what is so great about it. You may take a hundred pictures, one of which will be amazing. It won’t require any touching up and it will be truly unique. Although it constitutes a limitation, I like the fact that Hipstamatic requires you to choose your combo before taking the actual photo. Browsing sites featuring photos taken using Hipstamatic, I was blown away by the quality of some of the images and I became aware of the tremendous potential of the application. Before deciding to create Hipstography, I had written to some app users to ask which combo they had selected to create their images. Sometimes this led to lovely discussions with perfect strangers on the other side of the planet. The only thing that brought us together was our shared enjoyment of Hipstamatic.
As things developed, I realized I appreciated the fact that, behind every photo published online, there was a person with his or her own life, artistic process and tastes in terms of photography. It occurred to me that it would be marvellous to share this common love of photography. Not finding any existing sites dealing with both the technical and human aspects of Hipstamatic, I decided to embark on the adventure that is Hipstography. After a few weeks’ preparation, I launched the site in December 2012.
The main goal of Hipstography is to showcase the full extent of the possibilities offered by Hipstamatic. The site is also an excellent platform for exchanges between fans of the application. Indeed I ask everyone who submits photos to provide a short text to go along with the photo, because the background, the story behind the image, can sometimes be just as interesting. I hope that the combos I publish will inspire other Hipstamatic users. I have, on occasion, completely revised my opinion of a particular film or lens because of photos produced by other people.
In future I would like to further develop the Handbook section of the website, to better help people just getting started with Hipstamatic. I would also like to host an exhibit devoted exclusively to hipstography. —Eric Rozen
