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.
Where I Find Myself
Perhaps it is only when we are deprived of something that we realise it’s importance or value.
For the past couple of months I have been absolutely exhausted. Not just tired, but a deep seated exhaustion which has left me feeling dizzy, with blurred vision and arms and legs like jelly for large parts of the time. The doctors say I shouldn’t work.
This isn’t new. I’ve suffered from a post viral fatigue for fifteen years compounded by my own personality which is always wanting to get up and do things - the very reason for the problem in the first place - and the the cause of the greatest frustration when I can’t.
Most episodes are manageable - a few days every six months or so. However, this one is a biggy and has flattened me for the best part of eight weeks already and now no work until the end of July. That will be the summer holidays. That will be four months from my last full day of work until I next clock on. Pretty sobering.
I am sure many people would love to have this amount of time off. But that assumes full fitness. Not being able to do anything and feeling rough is not a good combination. When I was first told to rest I thought of all the photography books I would enjoy poring over and revisiting. Then, when I thought about building myself back up to fitness, I imagined the miles I would walk (gently) with my camera as I regained strength. The hundreds of images I’d capture as I convalesced. It was easy to put a positive spin on it.
That hasn’t been the case. For the last two months, I have simply not had the energy to go out and shoot more than once or twice (and then only for the briefest of times and only on the way to somewhere else). I really miss it. For all I wrote in my last two posts about the value of a creative outlet, the importance of this has been drilled home the hard way, through being deprived of just that. I simply haven’t been able to. And that means an important part of what makes me “me" is missing.
Instead of wiling away the hours educating my eyes by revisiting those photobooks, I have found that the appetite to do so has almost gone - I suspect due to the frustration at not being able to go out and do the very things that each of them have done on the street. The books simply rub salt into my wounds.
I’m learning to be slow. To do a fraction of what I feel I should. Anymore and I quickly overdo it. That sets me back for another four or five days. I’m not good at being patient.
I have gone back through the last two years of photos. Somehow, I felt that as my photographic eye had developed, there may be some forgotten or unrealised gems somewhere deep in the archive - there weren’t really. But I have learned a lot about how my eye has become more knowing, )and just how over processed everything was in those early images). I read recently a photographer - I forget who - who said that we learn more from our bad photos than our good ones. That is so true. It is the mistakes that teach us - think of falling off a bike. You don’t want to do that too often. I’ve marked the old RAW files up and saved them in a special folder to revisit in the next few weeks as I recover.
Perhaps cruelly, I have had a marked increase in the number of people reaching out and proposing photowalks. I will get there. There is nothing I want more. Bear with me.
2018 - Looking Back
2018 Gallery
The end of the year is always a time for reflection - and you know how much I love a reflection! I’ve been putting together a gallery of favourite images that I have taken over the year and it is encouraging to review the journey that I have been on. This is particularly evident when I look back further than a year.
For me, photography continues to be a huge learning experience. However, I do find that, as I develop my skills and hone my vision, the steps of progress becomes smaller and smaller. I suppose that when I first picked up a camera I learned a lot at every stage. This is where the perspective of a year (or more) is an advantage and so much more rewarding. My progress today seems to be more about attention to detail and fine tuning.
There’s an inevitability that some of the most recent shots will be favourites - not necessarily because they are better (despite my comment above) but simply because they carry the fresh excitement of a new piece. This will mellow over time.
It’s interesting for me to note that there is far more colour this year. I have never found colour easy - at various stages opting for too much and completely over-saturating. I really struggled with it. I would look enviously at the work of Ernst Haas, Fred Herzog, Saul Leiter and those they have inspired today. I still do and have much to learn but it’s encouraging to see a better quality in my colour work beginning to come through. Interacting with some of these photographers on social media, and even meeting a few in the flesh, has been invigorating and ensured that the challenge remains.
Finally, let me say something about light. Immersing myself in photography magazines and books, I would read about the importance of light, chasing light, seeking light, following light… This year I feel that I have begun to gain an understanding of light and that is what has made the greatest difference to my images. I have paid more attention to the quality, direction and strength of light and I believe it shows in what I have produced.
The exciting things is that I know none of this is about achievement but is more about progress. The images from this year represent where I am now. Another stepping stone in the river of development. I know enough to know that the other side remains intangible but still something to strive for. May we never stop learning.
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.