Instagram, by Richard Koci Hernandez, January/February 2012

“As a child I loved to color. I remember losing track of time and being absorbed in the process. I will admit to a slight sense of artistic accomplishment when one of my drawings was posted on the refrigerator. Ultimately, my reward was in the doing, not the result. Somewhere along my creative journey, I lost my box of crayons. Some 30 years after my last drawing was displayed in the kitchen gallery, I found a new creative tool and a new gallery to share my work. The newfound box of crayons I’m referring to is the iPhone and the refrigerator is the photo-sharing mobile application, Instagram.

The iPhone is not just a camera, but also the darkroom in the palm of my hand that includes instant ‘shareability’ with the world. My love affair with my iPhone as both serious tool for journalism and a new form of creative expression began at a crime scene in early 2007.”

Richard Koci Hernandez is a National Emmy Award winning visual journalist who worked as a photographer at the San Jose Mercury News for 15 years. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times and international magazines, including Stern. In 2003, he was the recipient of the James K. Batten Knight Ridder Excellence Award. His work for the Mercury News has earned him two Pulitzer Prize nominations. Richard was named deputy director of photography and multimedia after spearheading the creation of MercuryNewsPhoto.com. Koci is an assistant professor of New Media Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.