As your (lovely) story indicates, these things are so personal. No one ever takes a photo thinking, ‘Hey, am I falling in line with the per-conceived notion of what a good photo should be?’.

I think my main annoyance – and is this is a personal thing too – stems from seeing a lot of ‘hipster’, trendy friends taking arty shots of their weekend activities and posting them on Facebook as a kind of glossy magazine version of their lives. I know that’s the human tendency and we all fall prey to it – but it still irritates me at a personal level. When I see that same glossy magazine, rose-tinted-glasses technique used on something like, say, war photography, it seems a strange way to present reality.

But I can see the vast majority of users on Instagram et al are just using the service for their own, personal enjoyment which of course they’re allowed to do!

I have a flickr pro account, and own a few cameras including a canon 5d mark ii. But when my child was born following an emergency procedure, and again at 3 am when I was feeding the infant and noticed an interesting shot, I only had my smart phone with me. In the ITU, should I not have used a filter to take a slightly blurred dream like photo which to me resembled my hopes for this child, even when we were counting hours and days? Or should I have shot the photo in ‘normal mode’ and then come home and edited it while I was hardly getting 4 hours of sleep running to and from the hospital?

I think you make a point of not allowing twitter [in some other blog post] and instagram take over the role of mainstream / hardcore professionalism. But at the same time, do think about why these quick fixes mean so much to people. At one time photo shop was frowned upon for exactly the same reasons people do not like instagram. However, unless there were consumers for any form of art/ creativity / productivity tools, people would not be investing money into researching better cameras or for that matter almost any form of technological advancement. It would not be helpful to not respect this aspect .

I do however respect your opinions as being your own. I am sure people will share your views. I felt compelled to write only because I feel that in recent years I have crossed over to the other side