Mark Lindsay Art

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"You Push the Button, We Do the Rest"

Window with Two Chairs | Mark Lindsay

I'm trying to figure out exactly why I love the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone so much. Perhaps making images with it is more like play than work. When I fell in love with photography it was with the magic of image capture. The technology, the craft, the brain full of details all came later. It was the snapshot that got me hooked, not that five-hour sessions in the studio with complex lighting and large-format cameras.

"You Push the Button, We Do the Rest." It was George Eastman's Kodak camera and famous slogan that took the world by storm. The Kodak came with a roll of film that could capture 100 images. People filled up the roll and sent the camera back to Rochester. They got their developed pictures plus the camera loaded with a new roll of film. The concept was pure genius. Photography became playful. It was fun.

When I went to Rochester, it was to study the seriousness of a photography. The burden and heaviness killed my love for it. It took me twenty-five years to rediscover my passion—and somehow photography found me again. I wasn't even searching for it.

Maybe if I'd had an iPhone and Hipstamatic many years ago, it wouldn't have taken so long for the reunion. The Hipstamatic gives me random results that sometimes work and sometimes don't. Being on the brink of failure is exhilarating for an artist. Pleasing no one but the muses is nirvana.

Sometimes a photo is just a photo and more times than not, this old photographer just likes to play. Sometimes I just want to push a button….