Big Changes For Instagram

Great news! The square format is no longer essential to the Instagram platform. It now allows Portrait and Landscape Orientation!

Since it was launched the square image format was strongly associated with the old Hasselblad cameras. However, users did find a around the forced square format. Examples were adding padding to their images and even using special apps to avoid the square shape. Instagram has now lifted this square-only image format and allows users to upload photos and videos in both portrait and landscape.

Here’s the official Instagram announcement: “Square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to.”

In addition to this change, users can now apply all filters to all types of media. Where previously only certain filters work on just images, these have now been expanded to videos too.

The reaction from Instagram users seems very positive, at this stage. Personally, I think this is a useful change for Instagram. Many photographers actually use this platform for showcasing their work and connecting with current and potential clients. Cropping images used to be one of the biggest issues for an IG users, but now this is all taken care of.

Not everyone is going to love this change. No doubt there will be a few Instagram purists who don’t approve of the change. They may claim that the square format was the reason for Instagram being so unique. However, I personally feel that most users will find this useful and beneficial.

So, what do you think? Are you a fan of the new changes?

As you can imagine though, this isn’t an opinion that many people agree with. There is a sense that the art of photography is dying, or at least waning with the masses. More and more photographs are being taken but so many aspects of photography are falling. The care and attention that goes into getting the perfect shot and the focus and attention that is showered on a great image are no longer present for many people. With selfies being the most common form of photography these days and social media sites providing a platform for people to dump images where they are forgotten about by the next day due to the next influx of images, it is easy to see why so many people are concerned about the current health of photography.

However, there is also going to be a need for the high-end and professional cameras that help direct news coverage and give the masses insight into the life of their favourite celebrities. This means that the cameras and style of photography most under threat these days are the point and shoot cameras. With filters and other elements of assistance helping inexperienced photographers to capture and frame images in a way that they would never have been able to before, there is a middle ground being removed from the camera industry.

Then again, are people who live their life and their most special moments through a view-finder or the other side of a lens really taking everything in? There have been studies into the fact over whether taking photographs of an image or a moment becomes the more predominant memory as opposed to the memory itself. It can be fun to look back on images of special occasions but people who spent the entire day or event behind a smartphone may find that they don’t recall too much of the engagement and interaction of the day.