Instagram?

I have been an instagram user since about 2011. It launched in 2010. It was one of many services on offer at the time. I cannot remember any of the other services that competed with Instagram.
Instagram was a crazy place, in the beginning. A place where good and interesting photography was being posted. For me this was reason enough to use it. Then Facebook bought it. Over time the marketers and influencers took over and finally advertising formed part of its death knell. The final nail in the coffin? Algorithms.
In the early days I would post often. Charged by the idea that somehow using only my phone camera I was attempting to make ‘good pictures’. I realise that this is a nebulous and slippery idea. It was a level flying field and everybody was working with the same tool. Somebody worked out how to fool the instagram web site to think you were using a phone or tablet to upload with. Thereby removing the remaining friction in using the service. These days I rarely upload more than once a week. And now it’s as much about my work exterior to the service. Another marketing tool. This is a pity it was fun and interesting in its early days. Now I rarely find any new or interesting work. And somehow have managed to avoid influencers all together.

With all this in mind there seems to be some push back on the web against Instagram. Andy Adams’ Facebook group FlakPhoto is a good place to gauge the current state of the medium from a serious photographers perspective. While I see that instagram is useful, everybody seems to use it, I don’t feel compelled to use it. Josh Rose in his article on Medium recounts a recent interaction. He worked with a creative agency. Nobody there asked him about his instagram account. And several people looked at his website. I agree a serious working commercial photographer needs to maintain a presence there. But using numbers such as ‘followers' and 'likes' is precarious to the point of damaging. I suspect savvy enough creatives will understand this and will have adapted long ago. I gave up the numbers game a while back. Then accidentally deleted my main account. Which in itself was refreshing.
I joined instagram for the challenge of making “good” images using the simplest of tools. And in the beginning that was enough. Many skilled photographers were doing interesting with the service. All that has gone out the window. I feel like blogging and websites may have gone full circle and be on the up again for photographers.

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