Edition Forty Three

Disconnect from social media.

There is a new trend.

At first it sounds almost ironic. The new trend is the slow death of something which has a lot of power when it comes to setting trends.

It's hard not to be distracted. Everyone is so distracted these days.

Social media.

More people are starting to see the lack of value in constant connection on social media. The first few years of social media was great. Mostly because it wasn't such a cash cow. Sure they made money but not crazy amounts they do today.

We shared, liked, re-posted and retweeted. I remember my first experience with Twitter. It was around the time of Chile mine disaster. The consistent updates was better than watching the news. We wanted to know what was happening play by play.

To anyone who wanted to share photos, Instagram was a game changer. Your holiday photos. Wedding photos. Day-to-day-drinking-lattes-and-sitting-down-to-write-at-your-stylized-desk photos.

Anyone new to the platform fell in love with the immediate feedback.

You were a search away from your photography hero’s. And you had a chance to interact with them. Fast forward a few months and we started to share images because we felt pressured. We followed all the hashtag challenges. You feel negative about your work because it isn't getting enough likes.

How did it get so bad for such a simple concept?

Why is it difficult, as a photographer, to leave social media?

Instagram made it easy to share your photos online. Download the app, register an account and start posting. Add a few trending hashtags and wait for the adoration and likes to begin.

If you followed a few popular photographers this recipe seemed the most likely to get you recognized. You just had to hit a magic number for likes and followers. Once this happened it would be gear sponsorships, travel the world and live the dream.

Right?

What if one of your photos went viral?

You get immediate feedback on your photos. Likes, comments and shares. Perhaps you would stumble across a big account who asked you to tag them. Tag three friends and include 10 hashtags and you would get featured. Also you had to follow their account. The problem here is big accounts tend to feature bigger accounts. They use smaller accounts to grow their own accounts.

A photographer trying to get their name into the world would jump at these opportunities. I did many of them myself. Daily posting. Religious hash tags and adherence to the Instagram rules as set out by "gurus".

You go to sleep a “normal” photographer with 342 followers and wake up an influencer with 10K followers. Lots of photographers did it like this - why not you and me?

In 2020 1.04 billion people used the app. This is set to increase to roughly 1.44 billion by the end of 2025. I didn't delve into more statistics about images shared but with a billion plus users you can imagine the amount.

If it’s so great why leave?

Means to share, connect and interact with other photographers in your pocket. What is so bad about it? Herein lies the problem with addictions. We don't see the issues until it is too late.

I thought about a few aspects on how Instagram influences me in a negative way.

First of all is the massive waste of time. You can definitely set timers or let your phone dictate how much time to spend there per day. But its is still easy to become stuck in reels. Its easy to get stuck in the doom scroll quicksand. Five minutes turns into thirty when you start scrolling.

Comparing yourself to others are normal. People do it all the time and most of the time outside social media. It's not an artist specific problem. The problem comes in when it you put yourself down because if a pointless reason. "My photos are bad because I don't live in a big city" or "I am wasting my time if my photos don't get 100 likes".

You compare yourself to people who you don’t know. You don’t know their circumstances or anything about them. You judge your work from an incorrect perspective because it is lacking an element everyone says “has to be in a photo” to make it good. According to us, our photos are never good enough. It's never catchy enough. Always a shortfall or something missing.

We can argue about the basics - composition, lighting, focus. Having a handle on these are important. But opinions - do they make you a better photographer? As with comparison, there is nothing wrong with accepting and giving compliments. If we find a beautiful photograph and we want to compliment the photographer we should.

As a photographer it is important to take this feedback with a grain of salt. It’s great to get compliments on your photos but don’t base the worth of your work, or self-worth on the say so of others.

You shouldn't stop taking photos because of other people. Do what you like when it comes to your photography. Enjoy the process and don’t only focus on likes, comments and social media status.

Alternatives to social media.

You still want to get your photos out there. Either in a professional capacity or just as a hobby photographer. It’s really difficult to break away from something so simple like Instagram. If you are stuck on social media perhaps this seems like a bit of a tough ask. You are used to something and moving away might scare you?

Here are a few alternatives you can research if you want to move away from Instagram.

Websites.

Getting a website is a fairly safe bet. Hosting, domains and the things attached to it are very affordable. To build a website you don't have to know any coding. Having a website means you can control what you put on it. There is no overlord to tell you what you can't share.

The images you share on social media is only welcome until the status quo deems it unwelcome.

A great advocate for getting your own website right here on Substack is

Seth Werkheiser

’s newsletter. If you are looking for more ideas around this you first port of call should be his newsletter.

Newsletters.

Newsletters are a good option for sharing. You build a mailing list, get a few subscribers and if you really want to you can share more than your images.

You want to let people know about your process. Or you are sharing your thoughts behind the images. There has been a resurgence over the past few months in newsletters. Platforms like Mail Chimp, Substack or Beehive have become increasingly popular and are extremely simple to setup and operate.

Hard copies.

Printing your photos are very cool.

If you have a physical copy to share with someone it is really a different feeling from sharing it on a screen. I recently had a canvas printed with one of my images. Seeing it up on the wall has the same effect.

Printing your photos are cool.

I saw a YouTube video a while ago and it had a great idea about photos - print your photos and carry them with you in a photo album. I think this will work wonders if you are doing street photography and would like to share you work in a non-digital way.

In closing.

You might have a handle on your social media usage. Stick to the timers religiously. Nothing wrong with this - life is about balance. If you are struggling to disconnect from social media perhaps look at some alternatives.

A good point I didn't touch on in the post was how social media platforms can easily disappear. They can change owners. Their outlooks and ideologies clash with ours. The country where you live might ban social media outright.

I’m still on the fence about Instagram despite the drawbacks. I see it primarily as a portfolio for my work. Easy to share. Easy to direct people to. All these things made us too comfortable with social media.

It's time to disconnect. Put down the phone and pick up the camera. Once you’ve got your images upload them to somewhere which isn’t a time suck. To somewhere which doesn’t make you constantly compare your work.

Thanks for reading : )