Taking and sharing photographs is nothing new for our generation. We’ve been aiming our mobile phones at people, things and events happening around us ever since they started plugging cameras into phones all the way back in 2002. So why did we chose Instagram for this week’s theme?

With over 30 million users recorded in April of this year, Instagram is by far the most widely-used and popular photography application to hit the market for iPhones and Androids. This also explains why Facebook dished out $1 billion dollars earlier this year to acquire the nine person run operation (which is still eyebrow-raising for many of us).

We wanted a change in perspective and to see everyone’s non-DSLR photo-taking skills at work, similar to our experiment for the mobile photography theme a while back. The biggest appeal in Instagram is that allows someone who may or may not be a photographer to document their lives (mobile snapshots) or share news events (à la citizen journalism) in an easy to share way. Plus, it’s free.

Check out the full album of Instagram shots we received this week and let us know your favorites. Ours was the following by Rana:

By Rana Farah

Through the combination of bold, contrasting colors and a subject matter that appears to be popping out of the frame against the stripped background, this shot is a prime example of using Instagram to its best capacity. It’s a visually rich, graphically-composed and extremely memorable capture.

We simply love it.