Weekend Humor isn’t meant to be taken seriously. So don’t. We’re serious.
Instagram has been at cruising altitude since its acquisition by Facebook nearly two years ago. With the same 16 filters and more than 150 million users, the photo sharing service is steadily approaching a plateau, if not already there. Instagram doesn’t see much in the way of updates, and it was a year ago that Willow was added to the roster. In a recent interview, Kevin Morton, one of the lead designers at Instagram, revealed that the company is developing its filters into film stock.
“We realized that of the billions and billions of photos uploaded, most of them don’t need the filters,” Morton told us over the phone. “What good is bacon in Hefe, really? And all of those selfies- God, I hate that word. Go find some college junior studying photography and eating ramen in his dorm, and give him $20 for a portrait. Tell him you’d give him more, but you need to buy more ramen.”
Morton spearheaded the effort to hire some of the best in the film business in order to facilitate the filter-to-film transition. Kodak was the first company Morton called, and upon offering a living wage, he had eight new employees, all veterans in the film business. With the designs behind the filters readily available, the film division set to making film stock in those styles.
“We know we’ve caused a divide in the photographic world. An iPhone, something interesting, and X-Pro II does not make you a photographer,” said Morton. “You can the same effects, but now you have to learn how to use a goddamn camera since we’re striking the filters from the app.”
Instagram will remain intact, but will no longer offer any filters, which will make #nofilter moot. Morton urges users to focus on making compelling images without having to rely on pseudo film grain.
“Besides,” said Morton, “We’ve got nothing on VSCOcam anyway.”