Addiction. hedonism. Chase the dopamine hit. Just another taste. Just one more like. Ok, maybe 10, then I’m done. I swear it was all I needed! Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s what I did. This is the guy doing this and hey, look, I’m here. Lift the lid on the mediocrity of everyday life. The journalist of quotidian. Instagram is not what it used to be. We can all agree with that. And none more so than from the perspective of a humble photographer. Sure, it’s time to grow up, right?
I am a straight, white male, 35 years old. Admittedly there are not many afflictions that face me and I on a daily basis. I wake up, work, eat, drink, earn money, socialize, watch YouTube videos and go to sleep. I have friends and family that care about me and the people I care about, a loving partner that I can’t live without, and a career that, though sometimes arduous and difficult, is something that I can’t live without. I am really proud and admired. Not many people can say that about their work, right?
So why, then, do I interrupt my activities throughout the day, every day, with constant, animalistic scratching of my pockets, using the muscle memory accumulated over years of rolling in the right direction? literally to open an app that doesn’t give me a palpable and savage sense of frustration I’m in for it? Instagram, I don’t think I love you anymore.
Photographers need social media. We really can’t live without it, can we? This is truly an invaluable marketing tool and is completely free to use. So yeah, Mike, shut your mouth and get on with it. Use it to your advantage, limit your time to it, don’t compare yourself too much with others. It’s just a husky that can sing, you don’t have to watch it. I agree. I love them.
It brings attention to your professional activity and for all intents and purposes, it works! I’m definitely guilty of reaping the benefits over the years and enjoying it to boot! But lately, I can’t shake the feeling that those days are over, and beyond the inevitable “go with the times, sir” attitude, it seems to me a smart choice. much wiser: give it up completely.
Instagram isn’t just about marketing, is it? Not really. Your content is the vehicle to the end, the “end goal” being engagement, in and of itself. Useless and self-existent. Likes, Insta admiration of your Meta friends. And do you think it interests you as a photographer? As an individual being part of a network that used to be the sole purpose of its founding? Are not. The photographer lacks in the Insta model of 2023. Bordered by Insta-irrelevant. The shoot you’re so proud of can quickly land in the laundry room with utter disappointment, all based on the “likes” that don’t come up with the numbers you expected. Unzip it in a moment. It’s horrible. Your work gets caught up in a vicious and murky wave of algorithms. Tag as you like, hashtag to your heart’s content! Too much or too little? Don’t dare copy and paste. Trending or not trending? It’s a minefield of do’s and don’ts. Instagram says “jump” and we want to be the first to pass a post that screams, “How tall? How tall?!”
What’s your point, Mike?
Ok, I’ll stop with the dramas. Clearly, this is more of a personal issue than a global one to deal with (he said, gritting his teeth).
My Instagram is This. As you’ll quickly see, I don’t have a huge number of followers, likes, or even posts. My “Grid” read nothing like it had been considered by the curator of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. I don’t mind admitting that I hide some of the “likes” of my posts because they are disappointingly low. This has changed a lot since I moved to another city and had to spend a lot of time getting noticed by a completely different set of leads and interested parties. But therein lies one of the biggest problems. You don’t have to scroll long to see a noticeable change in the way I use my feed. In the past, my love for photography in all its forms would manifest itself to so many people that I met, worked with, loved, studied with, etc., whether it was amazing or downright overwhelming. terrible! My phone is also helpful in recognizing interesting lights, shapes and tones for travel shots or artistic street scenes.
It’s a platform that I can learn from and grow on, look back on and reminisce on. It is society, and I belong to a network of other people who, one way or another, know me, or at least know me.
In 2023, I’m looking to impress people I’ve never met, interact with hashtags that have been used over a million times worldwide, and throw my work blindly. blindly into the wilderness, bending to trends reflected by millions of others. Where is the joy in that? Where is the education? And in the end what? The only real purpose I can see is to create cohesion in the form of little red love hearts.
Volume
It is too big. It is beyond vast. Access to the content we have from anyone worldwide means you can pick up a niche in photography, areas we’ve never seen before, and potentially a few thousand people. Others do it worse, as good, or better than you. Change that niche into food photography, and I promise you, you’d better learn to swim. The Titanic had hit a giant iceberg lettuce, and it was sinking in a sea of beetroot mustard.
You want to get rid of it? You can not. That’s your algorithm. That’s what you do. Everything related, anything you dare to touch becomes a part of your little online world and you will be smothered with it! There was a day when photography, video and media had a platform that to access we had to buy a ticket, turn on the television, or research in the archives or on the internet. While all of this still exists in strips, it has since been diluted and dissolved into a literal world of users trying to do the same things, all achieving great heights. varying degrees of success, so much so that my poor little brain can no longer understand what is true!
Compression and scaling
Much of my editing workflow now involves cropping and resizing edits for Instagram. The 4×5 scale and 1,080 pixel width to avoid compression are part of my natural discourse. Great. However, I don’t think about taking pictures with Instagram. I memorized my entire frame. That’s what many summaries now come loaded with, which isn’t a bad thing! A well-defined synopsis creates clarity and consistent deliverability, and the Insta 4:5 cropping ratio for social media today is as normal as the 16:9 hero ratio. But what about when it’s not part of the summary? Those amazing high-resolution finished edits, glittering at 3:2 scale, need to be surreptitiously cropped to meet the needs of Insta police, or placed on a white background via the app. third-party applications, thus disrupting our precious grid management process. Oh, and God forbid you forgot to resize the image. No one wants to see French toast look like I shot it through the glass on the washing machine. Or maybe they do. There will be an Insta-niche for that somewhere.
Ignorance is bliss
The older I get, the less I care. Wait, that’s not true. I care. And hey, for all my laments, I probably still like Instagram, a little bit. It’s about choosing your battles, knowing your boundaries, and building a community. Those idioms still exist in the Instagram world. They are in full force with anyone who isn’t trying to be a creative image maker. They go on vacation with their family, go for a Sunday walk or spend time with friends. It always exists and is nice with couples on dates, dining in fancy restaurants or celebrating celebrations. For these people, it’s personal, not business. I guess my problem was that I let personal merge with business, and now I find myself in no man’s land. I will regularly check my Insta-cull accounts, unfollow accounts that are inactive or those that don’t say much about me and my life, and I am constantly reminded that Instagram My interactions are often filled with joy, happiness, and awesomeness. talented individuals just trying to show the world what they are capable of. My problem will never be with the amazing people who impress me or make me laugh every day, but maybe with the way I’ve let Instagram infiltrate areas of my life, it’s simple. simply not necessary. Oh no, Instagram. I’m so sorry. That’s not you, it’s me.
