Archiving instagram…again
What is it about this dumb app.
For anyone who considers themselves a “photographer,” or even an “artist” of any kind I’m sure, Instagram can be a weird in-between place where it sort of feels like you are doing something with your work when in reality, most of the time, you are not.
Posting a few images here and there may be dumping your “content” onto your followers, but I can assure you 99.9% of those people are not taking the time to give your work, or mine, a second thought. We know what works on the app. We know that if we sell our soul to sit and talk or make goofy videos on Reels we will see the engagement- but who tf wants to do that.
The app itself is clearly something revolutionary and I’m not going to go into my thoughts on social media here. I have met some great people and friends through the app. Hell, I even met my wife because of Instagram. But, the way we share work on the app may need a second thought.
Instagram, and most all social media is a never ending cycle. A cycle made to lock you into making more content and posting more about it. And when that content doesn’t work, they tell you what does so they can make you start doing what they want you to do. But the real problem I have with this focuses more on the cycle part of that sentence, and a bit less on the engagement/algorithm part.
There are of course outliers to the following thought, and many of them are actually posting incredible work on social media, and they are doing very little to ‘sell their soul’ to get views or followers.
But, there are two worlds of photography. The first being the social media and content world, where everyone is doing great. Everyone gets support from their friends in their comments, and everyone with a large following is living a great life. Then there is the actual working photography world where most people are out actually working, making books, printing, etc. and giving far less time to social media things. These are the photographers who I have always connected to most. When I look at my book shelf with my collection of photobooks, the names on the books I find most impactful are names I have never read while swiping through Instagram.
But why is this? Why aren’t they also posting their work there?
Well — that’s because it’s a terrible place to post most photography. Some things can work well there. Like, for example, a street photograph with one big, crazy action happening — like someone getting hit on the street. That might actually be a great photograph that also works well on social media. You can swipe to it and see something insane in the 0.5 seconds you spend looking at each post. That image could also be printed in a book and work well.
But an image with depth will never do well on the apps. It is never going to resonate when nobody spends time to look at it. An image that has layers and various meanings like something from the works of someone like Robert Adams is impossible to digest if you are just swiping through the app as it is designed. Not to mention the screen size limitation. In regards to Adams, you would most likely be looking at their image on instagram through a screen smaller than the negative that he actually took the photo with.
So, what is the best way to share photography today? We can’t all be publishing books, or constantly having galleries displaying our work.
Well, I’m not exactly sure. I’ve been trying different things for years. My favorite is by far my personal website. When I find a new photographer, even if I find them on social media, the first thing I look for is their website. This is because I know, or at least hope, they took the time to curate a selection of their work that they think means more than the rest. They have thought about the sequencing, the layout and the size of each image. And the viewer can spend time looking at each image on a computer screen and not a cell phone.
Making prints is also a great way to make your photos feel more “done.” Personally, I try and print a lot. Most of the photos end up in boxes that I only pull out to show friends or family, but this makes for a much nicer way to share the work compared to telling your friend to look at your instagram page to see what kind of photography you do.
Another favorite medium for me has been single copy books. I am not even sure how many I’ve made at this point, but services like Blurb offer a wide variety of high quality books that you can design 100% on your own and have single copies made. I know I have no way of designing, publishing and distributing photobooks on my own right now. But I can try and make my own to see what might work, and what doesn’t. This has taught me a lot about layout design and sequencing in ways I never would have thought of had the images just lived in the 2D space of a computer screen. It also has left me with a fun collection of books I’ve made filled with images and words from trips I’ve taken and things I’ve done over the years.
Where does this all leave me now? Well, I just archived all my posts on Instagram again. I’ve done this so many times I can’t keep count anymore. I have always struggled with the ‘look at me’ feeling we are all forcing when we post to social media, but is writing all of this any different? Who knows. Right now I plan on putting more effort into all of the non-social-media things I just wrote about — printing in the darkroom, studying more good photobooks, and more long form stuff here and on my website.
I’ll report back any thought provoking findings in future posts here.