Instagram Ruined Photography for Me
alvar.dev
alvar.dev
I also used to have a Lomo film camera which I would take everywhere. I really liked the film developing process, having to wait for the photos (digital cameras we already prevalent of course), then uploading them to Flickr, always also printing the photos, knowing that they would remain somewhere even if the website would be taken down some day. The Flickr account is still active, and from time to time I like to visit it, and each time I'm surprised that the website still exists and that their interface is still pleasent and relaxing to use, despite recent redesigns.
People dismissing these memories as nostalgia ignore the fact that smartphones had a profound impact on the way everything behaves. Instagram is not simply a "mobile Flickr", it's something profoundly different.
The fact is, with huge DPI densities of photos the best way to view something is a very high quality print at scale.
Real life > Flickr > Instagram (in terms of visual quality). The limitations of canvas form factor is a huge damper on visual arts. A square canvas is VERY different than a rectangular one, or a hexagonal one.
But the humble square is perfect for instant grammification.
Met a photographer the other day who said he sold about three prints a week, with a margin per print of $150 (after framing, shipping, etc). A day rate for a commissioned job is likely to be $1-2k.
Flickr and their ilk is where you meet other photographers. Instagram is where you get in front of people with photography budgets, IMO.
I don't think many are putting squares on Instagram - it's almost all 4x5 in the main feed or 9x16 in Stories. Whatever fills more of the screen, at least in my industry.
However, I shoot a lot of panoramas^ and resent that Instagram is such a terrible place to show them!
..then I clicked on your name here.. you have 9 websites/businesses?! Arggh! How do you manage that?
Not very well. For a long time, I struggled to focus on one thing, and eventually gave in to just do everything I wanted to do. There are definitely pros and cons, and I certainly neglect many of my projects. But it's making for an interesting life.
Have you tried 360 photography / meshing? It may allow for those gorgeous long image to fit on mobile better, not really sure. I've been toying with pannellum[1] , and displaying 360 mesh's, its fairly good on mobile. [2]
1: https://pannellum.org/ 2: https://transistor-man.com/Panorama/ashland_reservoir-9-2021...
No, never tried it. Some people split panoramas into multiple photos that people then swipe through, but that's awkward if the initial shot doesn't hold its own when viewed in isolation. Another option is rendering it out as a panning video, which I could try but haven't yet bothered.
However, my work increasingly shifts from photos towards video as that's where the demand/money appears to be. So I shoot loads of panoramas and then they just sit there unless someone licenses them.
I had two jobs last year shooting video for my country's national tourism authority - I shot half with my phone, and half with a tiny gimbal camera (Osmo Pocket) that uses the phone as the monitor/display/interface. I got paid, got two holidays, and the content went out to several million people. I'm perfectly OK with being someone who (amongst multiple cameras, four drones, etc) "also just uses their phone". :)
I am not the kind of anti-software purist. But I am definitely against fake elements in a photo, which there are more than plenty in Instagram and other photo sharing platforms.
I agree and I'm very much used to a ~35mm aspect ratio. That said, medium format film (120/220) was usually approximately square so it's not an objectively "bad" aspect ratio.
Or at least that's the way it was a few years ago when I looked into IG and gave up on it. Maybe it's changed, but it clearly doesn't cater to people with real cameras.
The camera obscura or one of the horrible modern DSLRs? \s
Always love when people that don't get modern tech start with the gate keeping. iPhone produce better pictures by themselves than 90% of all the "real camera" people with their $5000 Canons.
Is just a toy added to a phone. Not more, not less.
Have I missed some new feature? My iPhone just sits on the table until I pick it up and do something with it.
Modern phones are very capable cameras. I always have mine with me and, especially in non-challenging conditions (light/focal length/etc.) one can take very good photos with it. I use it a lot. But it's ludicrous to suggest that it's more capable than purpose built devices with much bigger sensors and much bigger lenses.
(That said, if you're someone who shoots with a DSLR on full auto and never has taken your kit lens off the camera, you should probably just stick with your phone. It's easier.)
No, I take photos for my own enjoyment, and I can recommend the following:
- set a photo you have taken as your phone background, or rotate through a folder of them[0]
- do the same for your computer wallpaper
- buy some frames and stick your photos in, change them every few months
You'll now enjoy taking photos for the joy of taking photos, and when you look at them you'll remember the day out or the holiday you were on... not be thinking about whether anyone else likes them.
[0]I actually have an Lightroom export folder set at my phone resolution that I can adb sync to my phone, it works a treat
The opinions of strangers are not worth chasing.
I share the photos I make with my wife and daughter but, otherwise they're just for me. My wife used some of the photos with various printing services to make physical articles that we interact with and that increased my enjoyment of the photos even more. I really like interacting with the photos I make as physical articles.
She had a couple of coffee mugs made with collages of family pictures. I get a kick out of seeing the photos each time I wash them.
She also surprised us with a "memory" card game made with 24 photos from family trips and gatherings. It made a simple game into a conversation about the people, places, and occasions in the photos.
She also had a tote bag printed with a larger-than-life print of a photo of my daughter's face om it. There's something particularly surreal, to me, about having an article like that with the face of somebody you know on it. It also, of course, prompted me to immediately photograph my daughter carrying the bag... >smile<
Spend more time with yourself and your camera, seek for quiet times and places, and take as many pictures as possible.
Photography can be like a good book that captivates your imagination; master your craft and eventually you will become a story-teller through your photographs.
This one [1] is amazing, I love it!
I'll sound like a shill after mentioning it in another comment, but you could try Later.com as a way to insulate yourself from that process. Take photos. Throw them into the queue. Let Later post them, and just ignore the metrics unless you want to be responding to comments.
I take loads of photos and then hardly share them for fear of a shot not being good enough. It's definitely a thing that grew noticeably with Instagram.
FB & Instagram reduced time between taking a photo and having people see it, and there have been times where I posted particular photos because I knew they’d get more upvotes, not because they were photos I particularly treasured.
Though I blame FB & Instagram for a lot, I don’t entirely blame them for my change in behaviour. A decade and a half prior, Flickr had the same basic dynamic. People posted photos with tags, others upvoted them. A feed displayed popular posts. The difference is with the device. Looking at a photo that’s physically smaller than a real-life Polaroid isn’t a massively pleasurable experience, so to compensate the photo needs to go further with its content — closer crops etc. I also end up seeing more imagery, because each viewing is sort of throwaway, than I did using Flickr. I don’t blame IG for that either, even though it clearly benefits them.
And truly free markets distort themselves, because people seek multiple things when producing stuff for their peers. If there are exploits, they'll tend to win… and there are always exploits. We're not truly rational in the manner of computers (to the extent even they can be said to be rational…)
The only way to really avoid this is to define other kinds of values or purposes, and then stubbornly pursue those instead of attention. Which makes you rather a pariah in the modern internet economy… it's pretty weird.
There is a 'market' for this, too, though. It's just more of a niche market, but if you signal to that smaller market it does hear. I don't do this as much in art but I do it in other areas, and it's real. (meaning: I don't really HAVE any audience in art, but there are places where I do)
To do this in photography, define something you want to pursue outside of just 'audience response writ large', and refuse to pay attention to anything else: in particular, be able to identify when there's an audience demand that's steering you away from the value you're pursuing, and be prepared to reject the sort of audience that's asking you to go against your own wishes. By rejecting one audience you're signaling to another (often this happens quietly and you only find out about it later, or not at all, where the rejected ones WILL be loud and offended about it: be brave)
That will work, so long as you're able to define something about the art that drives you, that's more than 'people seem to like it'. Your job is to be telling the AUDIENCE what to like, knowing full well that lots of them will disagree and be mad :)
Maybe the author would be better served by a community closer to Flickr than Instagram? It’s no longer as popular, but for the purposes of sharing photos with the world, maybe it’s a better fit? Instead of giving up photography, the author might want to think more about why they got started in the first place. It probably wasn’t to get likes. So maybe there is a different way… or different community that would be a better fit for what they want to accomplish.
I agree with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550590 here.
When you think about it , all social media is about a feed that is vertical (top to bottom) and smartphone screen oriented which is the opposite of standard photo formats. Doesn't even work for most of the old square formats.
I think "cautionary tale" is a bit hyperbolic. It seems to me that the author's motivations for getting into photography and expectations of what it would bring to his life have as much if not more to do with his experience than Instagram.
If you get into photography for the purpose of garnering attention and praise from others, rather than, say, telling stories you find important/interesting or chronicling your experiences visually, your odds of being disappointed are incredibly high. Everyone is a photographer these days thanks the camera we all carry in our pockets and as a result the supply of photos far exceeds the demand.
Note that this is not to say that Instagram hasn't had a negative impact on photography. As an avid traveler, I think it's both sad and amusing that people take basically the same photos of high-profile tourist sites to post on Instagram. But of course that shouldn't discourage anyone from taking photos when they travel if they really enjoy doing it, which is probably the only good reason for the average person to take photos anyway.
Did Instagram shift it, or did you?
> What I didn’t know was that for each new like and follow, a little dopamine was sent out into my brain. Every little bit of attention was a hit of a drug I didn't know about. After a while, you get used to it—wanting more and setting ever higher standards for yourself.
The line between agency and no agency is quite blurry. But I would say keeping up a pretense of agency is useful, even if only fictional.
In any case, I hope you can get back to photography and truly enjoy it. One suggestion is to see if there are local photography groups in your area, or groups for things you like to photograph (i.e. birds, etc.). These can offer great close-knit environments to share your photography and get constructive feedback, and to enjoy the photography of people you can have a connection with. Trying to get random strangers to tap a heart next to your photos is a soul-less pursuit.
https://petapixel.com/2016/06/30/photographer-points-camera-...
I am definitely sure that in this service use by millions of people there way more originality and diversity than that, but holy molly do Instagram tend to push those very generic profile down your throat and give very little visibility to original content. But I guess thats the issue with anything popular, it tend to aggregate around the most common denominator.
At least in its Japanese analogue the prints if they were made were put in an album or photo box and rarely revisited and were private.
Instagram wants to prove to everyone you had a really beautiful piece of sushi, even if it tasted like it came from a supermarket.
Everything is about proving you were some place and saw some thing hopefully shiny.
This was a bit sad. Of course, Instagram isn't the problem. The best creative people have always created work to please themselves. They do not really care about like mechanics and peak times to post.
I hope this guy eventually takes responsibility and comes to terms with some of his insecurities. There obviously was a spark that drew him to photography, but it seems he has psyched himself out along the way.
As pro photographer I personally find out that following other photographers won't help me with improvement, it actually shape my work to mainstream. So only place where I decided to put my work is my personal portfolio. I don't care about hashtags, I don't care about how much people like it or not. I just create what I like and talk about my work with others personally. My mind is much more focused on actual creativity then thinking about how others would like it or not.
I think the fact that 'taking better/more interesting/more unique photos' is not on this list is telling.
(I hate the game too.)
For the purposes of "remembering what the kids were like when they were young and being able to tell them about what they were like and the things we did together", the highest return on effort I've found is from taking a couple of 30-60 second videos daily.
I see absolutely no point in having a 24/7 feed of other people’s leisure (or non leisure) activities. It kind of makes visiting (or even audio/video calling) others more fun since you already know there is stuff to see or discuss that you have not already disseminated.
TinyBeans really helped my parents stay connected to their grandkids during the COVID lock downs. We're still using it as things open up because it gives me all the goodness of sharing baby pictures with none of the creepiness of social media. As a bonus, it also acts as a traditional photo book, archiving all our family photos in a searchable way. I pay for it, so I know I'm the customer and not the product.
It's happier on this version of the internet :)
I think Photography (the real kind, with minimal edits and realistic captures) is fading away and this Instagram photography style is replacing it.
Fake everything, all the way down.
The problem is, most photo sharing platforms are too susceptible to theft of property, or they're too susceptible to very bad quality photography.
Every once in a while I think about whether I should sell all my photo equipment. I got a Fuji S5 Pro, some flashes, stuff like that, nothing fancy. Really loved using all of it before I went to study and work afterwards, so pre-2015.
These days I'm fascinated by the quality of my smartphone camera and haven't touched the Fuji for years (ok, took a dozen profile pictures last year, doesn't really count for me).
I feel like I've "burned out" on that hobby and should probably free the space in the cabinet by selling everything.
What's your take on this?
Copying files, starting up Bridge and Photoshop... It just feels so... "stressful", when I just want to take a picture to send to a friend.
I have a pretty big Canon EOS system that had its start back in film days although it's a not-current FF digital body now. I mostly use it for events where the lighting isn't as good or where I want a longer or wider lens. But it honestly doesn't see a lot of use. I've thought of selling the whole thing but there are times I would miss it so I haven't.
I also have a Fujifilm X-E3 with a few lenses which is my go to for travel when I'm not just going to shoot some casual shots with my phone.
It doesn't matter if your photo is getting 10 likes or 3500 likes, dozens of comments and reshares. It just becomes related to relative performance of the other post.
So you shouldn't use instagram for that.
Also, you should know that hashtags are not competitive at all for many years now, there is practically zero utility in using them at this point and you should only use them for irony or an extended caption, as they can convey your thoughts without a sentence, you're welcome. Although you can still game hashtags, but even then it is just good for balancing out attrition of followers and maintaining an account size, as opposed to actually growing the account.
Going back to the main subject, you can use the overall engagement as a resource to acquire other goods and services though, like a currency that is never spent. People, brands will associate and do things for you for free (or with you, for free) because of the dream of your engagement, analogous to why the same brands and people gamble on ads with all the large tech conglomerates, a potential well of engagement. But you are just the dealer building inventory, and dealers know not to get high on their own supply so you shouldn't either. So by realizing there is no prize offered by the platform, no achievement unlocked, not even a digital sticker, you can short circuit the dopamine hits.
This is something that happened 5+ years ago, and maybe three years back. I reckon hashtags were bigger than right? Certainly seemed to work.
I could have been able to short-circuit that if I started now I suspect, but I was waay to young.
But unless you are in the business of growing profiles for other people, you shouldn't use instagram for trying to gain ever growing exposure as the dopamine is dangerous.
I don't have any solution for making that part of your visual arts display interest.
If you tried again, you should go back to private or even keep it public only as a portfolio to show people in person. Or to show an identity when you are communicating with a potential romantic partner over the messaging system.
And ultimately the right sort of content is what will count anyway. The best player in my industry/locale doesn't load up on hashtags now that he's on the right radars, he just makes great stuff.
The UX of Instagram is created by default to serve the normies as an outlet of vanity and virtue signaling.
The idea that social network has no option of uploading from desktop (unless using webdev browser mode) is absurd and clear design dark pattern.
It is the same for NSA intrusion teams and countless entrepreneurs, as someone recently shared here "The world is big and complicated".