Instagram: Doing it for the love - not for the likes
Doing it for the love - not for the likes
In my last post I wrote about Instagram being a huge social melting pot with representatives of just about every person you could possibly imagine - the best bar in the world.
I want to you to grab a pint in that bar now and settle back while I talk about my views on what makes it work for me. This is purely personal so please take it with a pinch of salt (and vinegar crisps) but bear in mind that my thoughts and experiences are likely to be similar and even familiar to you.
As I mentioned before “for photo sharing, it’s the best place we have to display our media to a wide audience.” Okay so the image is going to be relatively tiny but think of the coverage compared to what you may have had EVER before. Use that small phone sized image as a taster for your website – an aperitif, if you will – for those higher resolution images if you want.
Of course, if you can show your images then so can anyone. Hence the vast amount of traffic all day every day. Because of the two-way nature of Instagram I am going to write about what I think should be posted in a photographer’s feed – which images to post, which to leave out and how to manage it. Then I will write about what I want to see from others when I open Instagram each time.
A Photographer’s Feed:
Shoot for yourself - firstly, post the pictures that you would want to see. One of the reasons I wanted to take photos was that no one was quite expressing what I wanted to see in a photograph. If you are shooting the images you want to see then you should be posting them too.
That’s much easier said than done; especially when likes and followers begin to be taken into account. It’s very easy to get drawn into posting images that you think will garner most likes and new followers. You should resist this as much as possible. Shoot and post for you – there are enough people out there who over time will find and appreciate what you are doing if it is of quality. That way you post images you believe in and, most importantly, you develop your own distinctive style. I love reflections, night scenes, harsh light, umbrellas, shadows, silhouettes, smokers, hats, close ups and details, wide scenes, layers, reds, blues, high contrast black and whites, juxtapositions - and that means I shoot all of those. Not just hats; or silhouettes; or steamy Soho night scenes… as much as I love them, or whatever else is currently getting the love.
Feedback – better to give and receive
I relish meaningful feedback - especially when it comes from other photographers who I admire and respect. Criticism is so important if we are to grow and develop our craft. We all know how an image that we have spent ages framing up, processing and posting can easily just be seen through our own optimistic glasses. We wonder why others can’t see the amazing image that we waited for hours in the rain to catch. But the viewpoint of others means so much if we are to progress. Instagram gives us a ready-made audience for our work; ready made to offer tips, advice and, if you’re lucky, plaudits, for what we post.
The downside, and the one danger of Instagram, is that it can massage your ego rather than keeping it in check. Like for a like does not necessarily engender criticism. However, if someone gives up their time to comment on something I have posted then that should not be discounted. It’s a big deal. And I will try to repay that with a comment in return. As I said in my previous post, this is the social part of Instagram. It’s where relationships are forged. So, welcome comments – and be positive in return. Be nice – “if you can’t say something nice then say nothing at all” is a good maxim. Criticism helps us grow but nurturing feeds us.
Networking – we are social animals, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. And if you have signed up for an Instagram account then you can bet you are among the more sociable of those social animals. Feedback in both directions creates relationships - you’ll be surprised how well you get to know other photographers. The next step is often for some of these online relationships to become “meet-ups” and photowalks where you can share and explore great places to shoot, gear ideas and thoughts, and inspire one another. There is nothing like shooting in an area with other creative photographers to raise your game. But even without a physical meet-up, the benefit of interacting online can be much like the benefits of a shared photowalk.
Hashtags – something of a dirty word, or at least fraught with opinion and division. Basically, if you don’t use hashtags you may as well pop a photo in a glass bottle and fling it in the North Sea. The chances of anyone finding your work will be remote. A few (up to 30) well-chosen hashtags relevant to your image (don’t use #blackandwhite if the image is colour) will ensure that it gets noticed. I’m no expert but it seems like a Goldilocks problem – the popular hashtags are so huge that your work won’t appear for long enough to be seen, whereas the tiny hashtags will have little reach. They need to be just right to get picked up. Oh, and they change over time. And don’t start me on the algorithm. I’m not wasting time trying to guess what it’s doing or how it works.
And finally, on your own feed, don’t worry about the number of likes - hard to do and I wish I could say I didn’t always, but I am getting better and, yes, it is very liberating. I honestly feel that if I post what I want to see then I will find people who follow me because they see the world in the same way or are interested in how I see the world.
In short, post for you - and be nice.
What I see:
I want to be inspired. I want you to post images that stop me and make me think.
Surprise me - develop your own style but I don't simply post variations of the same thing all the time.
Keep your feed clean – by that I mean stick to one genre (for want of a better word). I don’t want photos of meals, mountains, mates… I am a street photographer and you can tell this by looking at my feed. The feeds I want to follow are street photography feeds too. If you want to photograph your kids, pets, holidays that’s great, but have a feed for them. You can have as many feeds as you can manage. However, if you want me to follow your street work then that will be all I want to see.
And curate your feed - don’t follow a travel photographer unless you want shots of pyramids and elephants in your feed. Follow for a follow soon clutters up your feed with people who are not genuinely interested in you or what you are posting – but are genuinely interested in having you on their follower list. If I don’t follow you, it’s not personal. I’ve found some amazing images on Instagram but if they aren’t street photography I won’t follow them on my street feed.
Hashtags – the double-click on an image is a really great way of liking a picture – far simpler than navigating to the heart to click. However, there’s nothing more irritating to me to find the image is filled with hashtags. Use hashtags in the caption or the comments - not on the image; no one wants to suddenly find they’re whisked away to somewhere else just because they tried to like your image.
Don’t tag me in an image just to get me to look at it. If I’m in it, or if it’s truly relevant then fine. But if you just want me to see you then it’s just noise and its irritating. It’s like knocking on my door and legging it.
So…
Accept it for what it is – probably the best image sharing tool we currently have it. Enjoy it. Do it for the love – not for the likes.
This was going to be a few thoughts – I hope it’s not too much of a rant (oh dear) – most of all I hope you find it useful. Let me know in the comments below.
Have a good one.
Instagram - probably the best bar in the world
@hueyraw
Imagine a bar, a pub or a cafe that everybody wanted to go to. Somewhere for everyone. A tropical beachside venue with a roasting log fire and views of the alps and distant desert islands. The most comprehensive jukebox in the world playing the tracks that you want to hear, just when you want to hear them. Over in the corner, a group of older people huddle convivially - playing darts, cribbage, or just bemoaning the younger generation. While over on the other side beneath the flashing lights, those only just old enough (if that) to be allowed entry compare tattoos, biceps, and lengths of mini-skirts. Then there’s you. And your mates - lots of them - swapping stories and riffing off each other’s energy and world view. Every night, it’s much the same. You can choose to spend your time with your mates, or sometimes show off your tattoos with the nippers and play cribbage with the oldies. No one minds. Hey, sometimes you don’t even show up.
It’s the best bar in the world. And the more people come, the bigger it seems to get. There’s room for everyone.
This is Instagram. It’s easy to knock it - not everyone wants the beach bar or the ski-shoes at the door alps experience from a pub - but for photo sharing, its the best place we have to display our media to a wide audience. It caters for just about everyone and the keyword is “social.”
To continue the bar analogy - if you choose to spend each evening simply enjoying yourself with your friends and were happy with that then that is fine. Good luck to you. If you want to grow your friends’ network and push the boundaries of your social circle by introducing yourself to some of the cribbage players or call above the noise to the youngsters by the door, you can. Perhaps you'll wander over, pay a compliment, offer to buy a drink, heck - you may even hold eye-contact (you old romantic, you). Some evenings someone may even come across to you - compliment you on your fine new threads, pet ferret, or ask about that friend you came in with. They might ask advice or even suggest something that would help you. This is the social carousel.
It’s not that different on Instagram. If you choose to keep yourself to yourself that’s fine. You may prefer a small following of just family and friends - and there’s nothing wrong with that. Or you may be happy to share your images more broadly, make your profile public and use hashtags so that others can find you. "Hey! I’m over here at the bar. Come and look at this!” That’s fine too. There’s room for us all.
Just remember, that when you venture across that crowded/empty barroom, dodging the table of pigeon-fanciers, the Star Wars crew, the vintage tea-bag collectors… that everyone in the bar is a person just like you. Be nice. Think before you speak. Pointing out that those brand new tan shoes would look better on your uncle than on them with that skirt - and he’s got better legs - is not the best way of developing that new friendship. If we are all going to get along in this shiny new retro antique bar, we need to support one another. Be nice.
Just like a bar, Instagram is a business. It wants more people to come in each night - and throughout the day. It’s obvious but it's not something that we seem to remember. I get as frustrated as anyone by changes to the algorithm or whatever it is that seems to keep the things we seek to control beyond arm’s reach. But if I could control or understand the algorithm, just imagine how much more control someone with even more ability and time could exercise. I wouldn’t want an Instagram that was ruled by a handful of huge accounts that had learned to play the system. I want my jukebox to play the tracks I want to hear with the occasional unexpected and interesting gem thrown in for good measure - not the ones that the big biker in the dark corner picked out or paid for.
Right now, Instagram is the best we have. Not perfect - but better than a lonely pint on your own at home. Unless that’s what you want!
So next time you feel like complaining about Instagram (or any other social photo-sharing platform) and the frustrations it brings (and I don’t deny frustrations exist), just imagine a time when the only people who got to see your images were your mum and great aunt, leafing through a dog-eared scrapbook that you had excitedly thrust under their noses while they tried to watch the wrestling.
Love and Hate and Social Media
The new screen time facility on my phone is making me alarmingly aware of how much time I spend using my phone on a daily basis. Granted, a good chunk of this is playing music, using the satnav, making notes for my blog, emails, diary… you name it. But the great big guilty pleasure is social media. Instagram. Twitter. And a little bit of Facebook. All in the great cause of photography.
I know social media has a love-hate image. I can’t say I love it but I certainly don’t hate it. It’s simply the best tool for me and my street photography right now. Oh, I know it has it’s negatives:
It's a time hoover - one quick flirtation becomes a trawl though the latest updates and a cheeky check on how your latest masterpiece is faring.
The time spent framing finished photos for Instagram and the the whole tagging rigmarole, let alone thinking up a clever caption (I like words).
The swathes of bots and their promises to make you follower-rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
The companies that follow you because you once tagged a nearby town - you apparently need their pizzas, their gyms and their photo studios even though two continents now lie between you and them.
Followers who follow you for a follow back and then unfollow you within moments - before following you again in the next few days without realising you’ve met before.
The algorithms - I can’t begin to understand them. There are people who’s work I look forward to but don’t see their latest work for days. But then, I suppose, if I understood the algorithm then others far more savvy than me (not too difficult) would understand it too and they would have the system sewn up resulting in nothing but their adverts and beige offerings. So I think I’m glad the algorithm frustrates me.
But for all of those and more, it still feels like an amazing step forward to me.
You don’t have to travel far back in time to realise that your audience was essentially those members of the family that couldn’t escape your photo album after a hefty Sunday lunch. Gran, grandad and their cat. Today, your latest offering can reach hundreds and thousands - and more if you’re that good - in seconds. The level of exposure (no pun intended) to our photography today goes far beyond anything that earlier generations of photographers could have imagined. We take it for granted. Just imagine how difficult it would have been for our grandparents to hit the kind of viewer figures that we take for granted - even on our worst days.
The immediacy of it all is amazing, especially for those of us who grew up in the film days (some day my prints will come…).
It’s a great leveller. Everyone’s photo is presented in the same way. Okay, that may be a small screened phone, an iPad, or the latest wide screen plasma monitor - but the format that they are presented in remains consistent. That doesn’t just mean that fancy, gallery frames are irrelevant but that the quality of the photo is plain to see and it stands or falls on its own merit. I actually also like the fact that I can post a photo and it appears on my phone, on my pc or tablet - it’s as if someone else put it there (not just me), published for the world to see. It gives it a freshness and an objectivity that I hadn’t expected. It's a chance to hold my work up to the light and see how it compares to what every (and anyone) else has posted. Somehow it has the air of distance and I find it easier to be analytical, critical. And I learn from that.
I like that others will comment on my work - describing features, composition, point of view, perspective, tonal range, you name it. Often they notice things I hadn’t. I learn from these comments. And they build me up too.
It’s social media, right. Social. It’s about interacting. You can choose to walk into a party and not speak to a soul or you can compliment others on their hair, their suit, their dress, their latest book/recording/photo/whatever… Or you can choose to sit in a corner and scowl. Social media is like one big party to which everyone is invited. Sure, online followers follow for a variety of reasons - and one big one is to get followed back. That’s just the oil that greases the cogs. The oil is needed. It’s what gets your creations out there;
It’s a camera club for those who don’t like camera clubs. As Groucho Marx said “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” For those of us who are too shy, lazy or busy to commit to joining a camera club, it social media provides us with the feedback to grow; and inspiration from others whose work we admire.
It often surprises me. I like that my work gets approval. We all need stroking from time to time. We are social animals and the approval of our peers matters. I’d like to pretend that the number of likes, followers and retweets doesn’t matter, but it does. Sometimes a favourite, sure-fire shot dies an untimely, unheroic death. Sometimes a real doozy strikes a chord and scoops acclamation all over the place. Sometimes one of the followers picks you up and does something with it. I have had my first exhibition, magazine coverage and invitations to openings - all as a result of exposure on social media.
Finally, it introduces us to new ideas, new artists, new concepts. Photography is partly a science but, for me, it is primarily a creative process. Creativity is always reinventing itself and social media can often be the kindling for that creative spark. I still shoot to please myself, first and foremost. However, I learn from the responses and ideas of others. Man is a social animal - not an island.
There are those who continue to use social media but slag it off, which I don’t really understand. I know I probably spend far longer on it than I should - but that’s my problem, not the media itself.