Above is a photo from Mr. Hernandez’s iPhone (a self-portrait at a Syracuse hotel). He imports it into the Camera Plus app, crops it, applies the Magic Hour effects filter and saves it. He then imports it into the FilterStorm app to apply a slight blur to the background, painting with his finger. He likens this process to cooking — pots, pans and all. Below is the finished image.

The Instagram photo-sharing app for iPhones, around only seven months, has already given rise to remarkably creative picture streams. It’s no surprise, given his reputation as an innovator, that Richard Koci Hernandez‘s pictures are among the more notable.

Mr. Hernandez, 41, is a multimedia journalist who has always taken “low-fi, alternative approaches” to photography. On the iPhone, the results are wondrous. His images are intimate, like digital daguerreotypes. But they also transcend their size and invite the viewer to get lost in their complexity.

His work can be seen under “koci” on Instagram or in “Youarenotyourego’s Photostream” on Flickr. At last count (4 p.m. on Wednesday), he had 17,329 followers on Instagram. He admits to spending ridiculous amounts of time on the application, hunting for “visual goodness” or sharing tips and tricks with other users. He and Dan Cristea, who met through Instagram, will soon open a site, LoFiMode, explaining the processes behind the photos they post.

In Mr. Hernandez’s photo stream, technique serves two principal storytelling elements: mystery and hope. “It might sound counterintuitive,” he said, “but I try and balance these two together.”

Long before the iPhone, Mr. Hernandez was shooting with Fisher-Price cameras, Holgas and anything that cost less than $10. “Some of the greatest photographs ever taken were taken with pinhole cameras,” he said.

When he worked for The San Jose Mercury News, Mr. Hernandez encountered plenty of subjects who laughed at equipment like his plastic Holga. “Trust me,” he would tell them. “When you see this in the paper, it will knock your socks off.” He is now a lecturer at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Mr. Hernandez constantly pushes the boundaries of storytelling. It’s an approach he urges his journalism students to adopt. Quickness to grasp new tools, he said, leads to stories that are “richer, more exciting, and more full of life.”

“It’s a lot of work,” he added, “but it’s worth it.”