Most of you have heard of Instragram (and are probably using it), but those of you have not, as a photographer who has an iPhone, I HIGHLY recommend you start to use it. Why? Not merely because it has a few nice, trendy filters, but because there's an immediacy and community that you can't quite replicate with other photo websites (i.e., Flickr).

The photos aren't technically spectacular, because most (though, some people obviously cheat) are taken with a cellphone camera, but they mirror the simplicity of Twitter and have a ability to share, communicate and have an intimacy that most other social media "apps" don't have. The only downside is the lack of any real web presence and web interface for users or visitors — there are no means of uploading, editing, sharing or using the service (aside from viewing a photo from a link) on the web site iteself (like other competitors like Twitpic, etc have)

Go. Get it. You'll love it (you can find me by searching for "wiseacre")

Thank you to Caroline over at Flavorwire for the Pic of the Day linkage (or whatever one is to say, I'm not sure how to phrase any of this without sounding juvenille or at the very least disingenuous) for "The Everyday Occurrences of an Aging Superhero". I'm sincerely flattered.

And while we're broachign the subject of agin superheroes, it does appear that this series of photgraphs will becoming a short film and accompanying photobook. The script is being written (by yours truly and one motke dapp) as we speak. Yes, and right then I changed a word. And added another. The internet — it's the future™! Look for this sometime in early fall of 2010.

Photogrpahy, like any creative endeavour, finds it's value in the personal tastes of others. What one may find beautiful or moving or engaging, another might find trite or vulgar or dull. This isn't to say that there aren't elements that make a photography inherently good or great — technically or compositionally — but the value of that photo is dependent upon someone else believing it has value. The biggest obstacle for the photographer is in finding someone who values your work.

One thing I find diffcult for myself, is that I'm unwilling to compromise my style for a trend (especially if I find the trend unappealing). Sadly, trend pays the bills. I guess lucky for me that photography isn't my primary source of income or I'd  be taking pictures of babies in cabbage leafs and back alley grocery store  with a wooden palete leaned precariously against against a dull brick wall, or God-save-my-soul, anything in HDR. Trend might pay the bills, but trends come and go.

A great photograph is a story, not merely a reflection of that instaneous moment, while trend sacrifices story for artifice and trickery. I'm not a great photographer, or a great story-teller for that matter. I'm as guilty as anyone else at subcummbing the desire to "fit in" and resorting to trend. But I'm not going to stop trying to become a better story-telling. A better photographer; and to do that I must remain true to what interests me — and hope that someone will find it's value.

I had a custom website I built several years ago for my photo work. It worked well for a time. But the process of updating and adding new photos, and reorganzing categories and pages became too time consuming for me to want to update.

It's the dilemma of any content creator or maintainer — the ease of use + the time to update > willingness to change. The time it took to add photos was greater than my desire to keep the site up-to-date; and thus it never was. Not to mention the time it would take to upgrade the overall visual design of the site.

I've been a long time VIRB+ user, jumping on when I saw their visual supremcy over the likes of Facebook and MySpace; as a social media tool. Sadly the service could never overtake the behaeomoth that is Facebook, and other social media tools took the limelight (Tumblr, Twitter, etc). Yet the functionality and simplicity of the interface was still far ahead of not only the social media websites, but also most all "out of the box" CMS providers. When Brad, Simmy and company announced their new direction I immediately thought about testing it on my photography site.

There's no need for me to rehash the reasons why you (or anyone) might want to use VIRB+; just read Ryan Sim's entry on that; but I will say that it's nearly the perfect tool for a photographer. The interface is intuitive, the creation of collections, uploading photos, moving the photos, adding captions, created collection "pages" (sections) and adjusting the Themes is as simple as anything I've worked in (and I've been in the web development and design industry for almost 15 years — I've seen it all, from Adobe PageMill and the painful phpNuke).

And now, I have an updated, simple and usable website.

So, this the new Wiseacre Photo website. For now I'm still attempting to figure out some issues with CNAME (domain re-routing) so that VIRB becomes the virtual host of all my material through the wiseacrephoto.com domain. No luck yet. Other than that I hope you enjoy the photos!