Is Instagram Real Photography?

What makes a “real” photograph? Better yet, what makes a “real” photographer? In this day and age of serviceable cell-phone cameras, easy-to-apply filters, and share-anywhere mobile services, everyone can make a nice photo, can't they?

Tim, PCWorld’s camera editor:

"I can’t believe people are defending Instagram. It’s a cheap way to make photos “artistic,” and it makes people into lazy photographers."

On one side of the line, many traditional photographers believe that any shooter worth their weight should invest in a DSLR and a few lenses, learn the intricacies of shutter and aperture control, and refrain from slapping a shrink-wrapped filter on a low-res smartphone photo and calling it “art.”

On the other side of that line are legions of casual shooters experimenting with photography for the first time in their lives, happily snapping, fake tilt-shifting, Awesomizing, and Tweeting out “stylized” photos of everything from cups of coffee to cats to sunsets to more cats.

So what makes a photographer a photographer?

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