Instagram and the Corruption of Photography
I get it. Instagram isn’t for photography anymore, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t change our relationship with it.
I’ve been having some thoughts: As I’ve moved away from Instagram and focusing more on this website and other avenues, I’ve come across a couple of thoughts relating to photography and what Instagram has taken from us. I’m not going to pretend like any of this is hard facts, but more what I believe has been lost over the past 1.5 decades or so since the rise of Instagram.
I first joined Instagram in 2012. At that time social media and apps had an excitement and innocence around them. All-in-all it seemed to be a more optimistic time and although social issues were well present, they seemed significantly less dystopian in nature. I didn’t really know what the app was for, but knew people we talking about it. Back at that time, all posts were photos in a 1×1 format and it was the beginning of the “filter” era - at least in relation to my life. At the time I didn’t even have a dedicated camera that I used. I wasn’t even really into photography in a formal sense. I was mostly taking pictures on an iPod touch without any serious intent - (yes people had iPhones at that time, but I was, and am a semi-luddite).
I don’t remember it at that time being serious and it was a goofy place to share your day-to-day with your actual friends. Realistically, I didn’t even understand why it existed at the time as you could do the same thing on Facebook - which you know this was a different time, because people still liked Facebook.
Unfortunately for me, I only started taking photography seriously after my introduction to Instagram and this has had a profound effect on how I’ve approached and understood photography. This is not for the better. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time looking at photo books of many more well-esteemed photographers in history and of today. Some of the names include Joel Meyerowitz, Ansel Adams, William Eggleston, Allan Schaller, Slim Aarons, Gregory Crewdson,Fred Herzog and others. What I’ve noticed over time has been shaping my whole approach and philosophy in regards to photography and the work I want to produce.
What I’ve learned is that a lot of their work is paradoxically mundane. Yet, I’ve found myself exploring these images for long periods of time that would be unheard of on Instagram. This has led to a shift in my thinking around what is a “good” image and I’ve had an epiphany moment of recognizing that Instagram has really distorted photography and our sense of images. This is primarily thought the mechanism of likes and the incentive structures that Instagram has and continues to reward. I don’t believe it was always this bad and there used to be something to be gained socially or culturally from Instagram however this has changed for me and at this point I believe Instagram has one goal and it isn’t to create a platform to share art, experiences or culture - it’s to keep you on their platform as long as possible to harvest your data and show you ads. That is it. Nothing more. It is a machine of mental consumption. You are the product for them to sell to business and they do not care how they keep you on the platform, as long as you stay on the platform.
Before I get into it, I want to state that I don’t think I have to lecture you on how social media has ruined attention spans and cause negative social effects across society. I think we all understand that. However I’ve come to the realization that I didn’t really know photography as an art form prior to the Instagram zeitgeist and it has cause distortions in how I’ve viewed and understood photos and it has shaped my photography massively and not for the better.
The first distortion to list is that we now expect all “good” images to be pretty. It’s no surprise that beautiful images resonate with the masses. It makes sense. People like to feel good and having a visually pleasing image will likely elicit such reactions. Thus in the age of Instagram where chasing positive engagement numbers is the social currency of how “good” you are as a photographer. The problem is is that an ugly image can be brilliant. Sometimes you want to convey something other than the nice and demand a different response from people - like repulsion. I think Martin Parr aimed for a bit of this in the Last Resort, and it took me years to understand what he was saying and to respect and value his work as I believe it deserves to be. Martin Parr made ugly images. They were ugly because he created a visual commentary of the desperate, ridiculous and depressing aspects of what appeared to be a declining social class on vacation. His body of work is great because it leaves you feeling kind of gross. What he showed you was not meant to please your eye, but to make you feel and think about the nature of how we exist in society and where we’ve failed… or at least that’s what I believe he was saying. And this is so much more powerful than just a “nice” image. 10 years later I am still able to remember how I felt when I first saw his work - which I hated at the time, because I was looking for simple pretty images and couldn’t understand why people wanted to few his kitschy images. However the staying power and the message of his work has now penetrated my thick monkey-brained skull and I see the brilliance.
Secondly, Instagram has caused us to favour loud and bold images over quiet ones. Just like whispering in a crowd, nobody hears you, but that doesn’t meant that what you have to say is less important. This is the same for images. Sometimes they don’t immediately grab your attention and say “LOOK AT ME GODDAMMIT”, but that doesn’t make them worse. What I’ve noticed is that bold images rarely have any staying power. They grab your attention, but don’t have much to say. Sometimes the less obvious and softer images are the ones I come to spend the most time looking at and returning to. Because you have to search in them, there are new things to be discovered and often they evolve in our perception over time. On Instagram and image like this cannot succeed. Firstly the image size on a phone screen is too small for one to get lost in the details and to explore an image. Secondly images are all gathered together and like the crowd, the loudest ones dominate - good or bad. It’s a shame, because getting lost in the details is what photography is all about, and it is effectively impossible to experience this on Instagram.
Third, Instagram punishes the process. What I mean by this is that those who post often and lots of content are rewarded and it discourages slow and contemplative behaviours. If you aren’t regularly cranking out content, then you might as well kiss your Instagram “career” (lol) goodbye. I don’t know anyone who performs their best work consistently scrambling and quickly creating. Yet once again, the incentive structures of Instagram reward this and thus, lots of time the dopamine grabbing garbage wins. Quick and dirty, devoid of soul, craft or meaning. That is the Instagram way.
Fourth, Instagram is a competition and not a community. There is very little room for discussion or contemplative development within a community. I don’t even know if I would say Instagram is for sharing ideas. It’s all quick consumption, no-digestion and move on. I’m not saying there is no discussion on Instagram, but it isn’t the point of the app and it pretty much is devoid of meaning. Growing together is just not the point. The point is to get engagement and to have more likes / follows / sponsors / etc. and it is quickly becoming a zero-sum game. With the saturation of “content” there just isn’t room for everyone to win. There are limited resources to gain and so many people trying to take them that the idea of community growth is just not feasible.
My fifth and final observation of this post is in relation to aspect ratios. Because of the nature of Instagram being a vertical phone app, I’ve barely explored aspect ratios outside of 5×4, 4×3 and 1×1. However it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to know that there are so many other possibilities and images that require aspect ratios that are poorly supported on Instagram. Virtually every panorama is a compromise and you lose so much real estate with anything letterbox in shape that the detail is gone. Because of this, I feel like I’ve missed out on so many creative possibilities as I was always shooting with Instagram in mind. Retrospectively I feel robbed by this.
Having never known photography before Instagram, it was hard to see that how we approach modern photography is significantly influenced by the demands and incentives set by Instagram, whereas I have found so much value in viewing photos outside of that medium and have been more clearly able to find my vision and relationship with my own photography and what I want to say.
It’s just a shame that there really isn’t a good place for photography to be shared online these days. I know Allen Schaller’s Irys app is trying to be what Instagram fails to do for photography and I am hoping for it’s success, but realistically I don’t know how far it will get. However I have joined it as a founding member in my attempt to help support the app to grow into what I want it to be. I am not sponsored and I’ve never spoken to Allen (out side of him saying thanks to me complementing a photo on Instagram once), but I just am hoping for something better to be out there for us to share our art and ideas.
Anyway… I’m to lazy to proofread this for errors (my blog, my rules). Hopefully it makes some sense.