Hipstamatic is a

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...

application for iPhone sold by Hipstamatic, LLC. It uses the phone's camera to allow the user to shoot photographs, to which it applies a number of software

filters Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

to make the images look as though they were taken with a vintage

film camera A movie camera (also known as a film camera and cine-camera) is a type of photographic camera that rapidly takes a sequence of photographs, either on an image sensor or onto film stock, in order to produce a moving image to project onto a movie s ...

. The user can choose among a number of effects which are presented in the application as simulated

lenses A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...

films A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

and flashes. Several of these are included with the application, while others may be acquired through an in-app purchase. The application had sold four million copies as of January 2012.

Background

According to Hipstamatic, the Hipstamatic 100 camera was developed in the early 1980s by Bruce and Winston Dorbowski, but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 200 units. The application's styling is based on the style of a cheap plastic analog photographic camera. It is assumed that the backstory is

viral advertising Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...

. Hipstamatic is part of a

retro Retro style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from history, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. In popular culture, the "nostalgia cycle" is typically for the two decades that begin 20–30 ...

trend in

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

, which has seen a rise in the popularity of cheap and technically obsolete analog cameras (such as

Lomography A toy camera is a simple, inexpensive film camera. Despite the name, toy cameras are fully functional and capable of taking photographs, though with optical aberrations due to the limitations of their simple lenses. From the 1990s onward, ther ...

and Polaroid

instant camera An instant camera is a camera which uses instant film, self-developing film to create a chemically Photographic processing, developed print shortly after taking the picture. Polaroid Corporation pioneered (and Patent, patented) consumer-friend ...

s), as well as software

and

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

software that emulate such cameras. Other vintage photography applications include CameraBag and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

. Like Hipstamatic, they often include

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

features. Some phones include similar built-in filters.

Reception

Ringsend, Dublin photographed using the Hipstamatic app

Saint Stephen's Green in autumn, photographed using the Hipstamatic app

The application had sold 4 million times as of January 2012. It received additional publicity when ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' photographer Damon Winter used it in 2010 to illustrate a front-page story about the Afghanistan War. The story so illustrated was: Winter's images gained recognition by receiving third place in the

Pictures of the Year International Pictures of the Year International (POYi) is a professional development program for visual journalists run on a non-profit basis by the Missouri School of Journalism's Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. POYi began as an annual competition f ...

photojournalism competition. In 2013,

P&TLuxembourg POST Luxembourg, formerly known as Entreprise des Postes et Télécommunications, is a mail and telecommunications company based in Luxembourg. The company is a government-owned corporation, which originated from Luxembourg's state-owned PTT agenc ...

issued a series of

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

s featuring Hipstamatic photographs realized by François Besch.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://hipstamatic.com
Vice Article
IOS software Camera software