Behind the Filter: the Dirty Little Secrets of Travel Instagrams

By Steven Kurutz
December 14, 2015
Credit: Steven Kurutz
Someday we will apply the filters to our lives. Feeling grey? Tap the little sun icon and roll your finger right to lift your mood to the desired brightness. Is your Monday morning commute a bit flat? X-Pro II will give it that high-drama contrast. For now, the filters exist on Instagram, and alter only our photos, though the before-and-after is no less astounding to contemplate.

Filtering is in fact the final and most crucial stage of the Instagram travel photo. It comes after the pretty scene has been chosen and (if necessary) prop-styled, and the dozen or so pics you snapped from varying angles have been edited down to one somewhat perfect image—say, of you and a friend atop the Vatnajokull glacier, in Iceland.

It’s a landscape dramatic and other-worldly, to be sure. It’s what you’ve flown halfway around the world and taken a three-hour car ride to witness with your own eyes. And yet your photo is underwhelming, somehow. The craggy ice field lacks vivid definition. The composition is tilted by several degrees. As tends to happen upon glaciers, the sky is drably overcast, something you would correct if you knew the first thing about photography.

You could post the photo as-is; it would document the real moment. But it wouldn’t signal to your followers that your life right now is a waking National Geographic expedition. This is where the magic comes in, in the form of adjust, brightness and saturation; and X-Pro II or Hefe; and, if still more photoshopping is needed to achieve max cinematic effect, an editing app like VSCO or Snapseed.

On beholding the results, even you can’t believe this is the same meh photo. Indeed it isn’t. So when you post to Instagram and the comments pour in from people going, “That looks so amazing!” you comment back, “I know!” And in that moment, the filter version becomes your remembered reality.
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Dobbs Ferry, NY

Credit: Amy Schellenbaum

Photo courtesy of @acsbaum

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Hotel de Sully, Paris

Credit: Kat Tanita

Photo courtesy of @kattanita

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Annecy, France

Credit: Steven Kurutz

Photo courtesy of @thenostalgist

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New York City Skyline

Credit: Laura Itzkowitz

Photo courtesy of @lauraitzkowitz

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Blue Hill, New York, NY

Credit: Sarah Firshein

Photo courtesy of @Sfirshein

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From Above

Credit: Nikki Ekstein

Photo courtesy of @nikkiekstein

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Vatnajökull, Iceland

Credit: Flora Stubbs

Photo courtesy of @florastubbs

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Scarpetta at Gurney's Montauk

Credit: Kat Tanita

Photo courtesy of @kattanita

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Early Morning Times Square

Credit: Sean Flynn

Photo courtesy of @BuffaloFlynn

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Ipamena Beach

Credit: Daily Overview

Photo courtesy of @DailyOverview

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New York City

Credit: Wanted Visual

Photo courtesy of @Wantedvisual

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Palm Beach

Credit: Sara Clemence

Photo courtesy of @saraclemence

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Route 26

Credit: Jane Bishop

Photo courtesy of @JanehBishop

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Kansas City, MO.

Credit: Steven Kurutz

Photo courtesy of @thenostalgist

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