A week ago or so, my friend Justin Watt posted the following to his Facebook wall:

I read a discouraging statistic that 5% of sushi goes un-Instagrammed.

I immediately responded with the following:

I had sushi today for lunch and, tragically, I was too hungry to remember to photograph it first.

I was touched by his response.

Ash, you’re part of the non-existent problem. Less professional looking photos, more sushi pictures.

Not to let a challenge go unmet, the next time I had sushi, I took a photo with Instagram.

It got me thinking about iPhonography: are iPhones phones with pretty capable cameras in them? Or good point-and-shoot cameras with phones in them?

I think that many people look at Instagram as the death of photography, but I also know that many photographers said the same thing about digital photography a decade ago. Or even Polaroid before that.

I know Justin was kidding about Instagram’ing sushi and I thought it was really funny. But in all seriousness, I think people have always enjoyed photographing things. People are social, and sharing kale salads on Instagram is just the kind of sharing the state of the art in technology allows us to do.

Instagram isn’t ruining photography — it’s enabling the shift in photography that society wanted anyway.