After more than a year of opting out, I finally let go of my reluctance to use one of the numerous and extremely popular camera apps available on the iPhone and downloaded Instagram. When I found myself walking along the Santa Monica Pier today with Erinn I decided to give it a try, and found myself really enjoying shooting with my phone for once. It wasn’t that I was against the apps themselves – I think the effects can be cool and always love shooting in a square format – it was just that everyone had adopted these programs so quickly that all of the photos were beginning to look the same and that too many are leaning on the gimmicky color effects to make otherwise weak photos look interesting. However, after taking a couple photos I liked right off the bat I was hooked and decided to make a quick photo project of it, shooting everything I could in the time it took us to walk to the end of the pier and back. Here’s the majority of the shots I took, stitched together in one easy to view pastiche.