The rise and fall of Instagram (?)

[Archiver]

Re. prints: In the 2000s, I helped my girlfriend of the time move into a new house, and in a couple of boxes were stacks of photo albums, and many framed prints. The photo albums were the usual family photos from over the years, and the framed prints were a mix of family and travel. Some of the travel images were quite impressive, antelope or some other kind of horned animals walking up a mountain and silhouetted against the sky. They would have been taken with a film camera some time in the 90s. She never hung them up after she moved, and who knows what she did with them later.

I haven't printed anything for years, and maybe I should, because I have numerous photos that would be quite suitable for decoration. Things like this:

M9 - I Am Number Four by Archiver, on Flickr

Natura - Southbank By Dusk [explore #8, 2006 10 06] by Archiver, on Flickr

S5 - Save Flinders Pier by Archiver, on Flickr

The irony is that I take photos of athletes, and many of my images are printed and hung on the walls of homes and gyms. And yet I never print my paid work. Maybe one day, I will.

 

[gabrielelopez]

As many things, they start in a way and evolve differently.
Everyone I hear, is sick of Instagram. I don't even believe Vero or anything else similar. The problem may be in the fact that nobody has interesting things to say or show every minute and it gets boring, we get used. We want free platforms, no way that we would pay 20 bucks for flickr...so we just become overwhelmed by ads we then complain about.
Forums, personal websites, newsletter...and maybe flickr if we would decide to go back at it (there's still a lot of people using it) is 200x better than any other (un)social media phone app. Oh yes, the phone is the ultimate attention killer.

 

[Prest_400]

Forums, personal websites, newsletter...and maybe flickr if we would decide to go back at it (there's still a lot of people using it) is 200x better than any other (un)social media phone app. Oh yes, the phone is the ultimate attention killer.

That is interesting. IG I never bothered using for my (film) photography, I am strangely old school for my generation and uploading something suddenly ties it to a KPI of engagement or likes. Yes, also many have made a living out of more or less dumb content there.
A big outcry was the push for reels, which is a response to TikTok.

I use IG to passively be up to date with acquaintances and friends (stories), photography I am interested in, research (travel, etc) and as I mentioned lately some dumb scrolling. When I mention "research", there is useful content for travel as it is very visual but with a grain of salt; then as well a lot of the content is just targeted for "engagement".

Facebook is useful as an event calendar in my locale, but I am getting a lot of bad content.

A while ago (I think he was a co-forumer too). TLDR the personal spaces have been replaced by spaces hosted by the tech companies (FAANG) and it is enshittification. The Web is broken

 

[helen.HH]

still a Flickr gurl ...
prefer 'Big' photos to view &
like here on RFf have made dear Friends thru the years.

Detest Zuckerberg
the little small man Coward
mean spirited, all mine mentality with his sites
be it on Facebook or Insta

A good Fall would be nice to watch but his billions would be a soft fall

makes it difficult to 'delete ' your account on both sites/ wants to keep his #'s up

nough said 😊

 

[Coldkennels]

A while ago (I think he was a co-forumer too). TLDR the personal spaces have been replaced by spaces hosted by the tech companies (FAANG) and it is enshittification. The Web is broken

The web IS broken. That's one of the reasons I love RFF so much - it takes me straight back to the "good ol' days" of the web, before everything got bundled into a series of monolithic algorithm-driven silos.

Also: Mastodon. I can't recommend Mastodon highly enough. Lovely place. It's like Twitter without the hate, and there's lots of friendly photo-folk on there. Best bit? No algorithm, no ads, all open-source, and you could start your own server and have total control over your content and who can interact with it if you were so inclined. Here's my account for anyone interested in going that route: Tony (@coldkennels@mastodon.social)

 

[Prest_400]

The web IS broken. That's one of the reasons I love RFF so much - it takes me straight back to the "good ol' days" of the web, before everything got bundled into a series of monolithic algorithm-driven silos.

Also: Mastodon. I can't recommend Mastodon highly enough. Lovely place. It's like Twitter without the hate, and there's lots of friendly photo-folk on there. Best bit? No algorithm, no ads, all open-source, and you could start your own server and have total control over your content and who can interact with it if you were so inclined. Here's my account for anyone interested in going that route: Tony (@coldkennels@mastodon.social)

Flickr is interesting. It's mostly personal, that I never went into posting stuff in social media compared to just contributing here. The other day I was browsing a few photographers' Medium format work, as I did in 2012. I was rambling myself about the lifetime cycle of an image, because the Flickr format is allowing me to revisit those images 12+ years after. Whereas in IG they just disperse, it's not easy to navigate to the past there.
I do consume social media but do not participate, it just gives me unsettling feeling of emptiness and void. They are however very useful for personal contact, but it is the private chat features and sharing that I am using 98% of the time.

A couple months ago I was participating in our community darkroom development session and somehow I started just mentioning knowledge I gathered from these forums and more or less first hand sources. I thought that I grew up learning photography as an entretainment instead of less productive activities. Surely a high degree is about personal curiosity that I had then, but I realise that the (FB) groups and IG are much less suited to this learning format than forums.

If you allow me to go a bit OT... the TikTok limited attention span format is worse, I am not up to date on the research done about this but it is a negative development. But also, like others have mentioned about printing and such, and related to my previous 12 year image contemplation... Do people really bother or has photography become quite disposable?

 

[helen.HH]

oh gawd...
the mention of Tik Tok above

forgive me but
Tik Tok is a disease ,
an addictive waste of Time, rotting the focus & brains of the Youth ...🤮

 

[Godfrey]

Ah, the socials. My perceptions:

FaceBook ... mostly useless, mostly nonsense, rarely spend any time there.
Tik Tok ... no opinion, unusable, unviewable, much stupidity.
Instagram ... eh? Yes, it sort of works. ... and ... No, It doesn't. :: both are true.
Flickr.com ... a good image server, many communities (I don't participate in the communities). I get an occasional comment there that spawns a nice conversation.

Topical forums like RFF are much better at fostering communities I prefer.

G

 

[das]

What kind of sucks about all SM that can showcase photography is that we live in such a creepy era where posts are shown around world and you never know what people you don't (or do) know are doing out there. That's why so many people cannot post some of their BEST photos publicly, because they would feature friends and loved ones. I certainly would not want my likeness circulated around the world. So that reduces the range of available good photos from the get go.

At least during the gallery era, only so many people would actually see your photos. So even if you included your SO, friends, or kids, it's not like the whole world could see them.

 

[Godfrey]

It is always best to assume that if you're in a public place, you are visible to the whole world.
This was always the case since the beginning of photography in 1839. Electronic media just speeds up the process.

And what's so bad about posting photos of friends and loved ones? Many of my best and most popular photographs include friends and family in them. They're in public, doing what people do. There's no 'invasion of privacy' going on. To 99.999...% of the world audience, they're just some random human being. What's the big deal?

G

 

[das]

Regardless of what I would think about anonymity and whether anyone on the internet cares or would use the photos or information gleaned from them to my or loved ones' disadvantage, my family and friends don't want pictures of themselves posted publicly. And I wouldn't want my photo posted either. So here we are.

It is always best to assume that if you're in a public place, you are visible to the whole world.
This was always the case since the beginning of photography in 1839. Electronic media just speeds up the process.

And what's so bad about posting photos of friends and loved ones? Many of my best and most popular photographs include friends and family in them. They're in public, doing what people do. There's no 'invasion of privacy' going on. To 99.999...% of the world audience, they're just some random human being. What's the big deal?

G

 

[Godfrey]

I can understand that, and accept it, but in an age where the statistics are that you are likely being photographed by someone/something every 15 seconds that you are out in public, it seems somewhat at contention with reality.

None of my friends or family seem to give a darn. 🤷‍♂️

G

 

[Retro-Grouch]

None of my friends or family seem to give a darn. 🤷‍♂️

G

Maybe we all should, or should have, but the horse is out of the barn at this point.

 

[TenEleven]

Maybe we all should, or should have, but the horse is out of the barn at this point.

Well it's not so much the act of being photographed, as to what is being done with the data. It basically vanishes into some unaccountable black hole being used for ?!?!? .. that is the scary part not the act of getting photographed in public imo.

 

[Gordon Moat]

Well it's not so much the act of being photographed, as to what is being done with the data. It basically vanishes into some unaccountable black hole being used for ?!?!? .. that is the scary part not the act of getting photographed in public imo.

Lately, it’s been to train various AI models. I’m not against Artificial Intelligence, though I think much of the data usage is unethical, bordering on illegal.

 

[Godfrey]

Maybe we all should, or should have, but the horse is out of the barn at this point.

Yes, that barn door was left wide open at least thirty years ago now. Absolutely no sense in complaining about it ... it's a done thing ... and once done is impossible to undo.

G

 

[Michael Markey]

Regardless of what I would think about anonymity and whether anyone on the internet cares or would use the photos or information gleaned from them to my or loved ones' disadvantage, my family and friends don't want pictures of themselves posted publicly. And I wouldn't want my photo posted either. So here we are.

As soon as you step out in the street you are in play . Cameras are everywhere . Endeavouring to limit your exposure by not posting your work is nugatory.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

As soon as you step out in the street you are in play . Cameras are everywhere . Endeavouring to limit your exposure by not posting your work is nugatory.

Too true. But even a futile act of resistance is good for the soul.

 

[Michael Markey]

Too true. But even a futile act of resistance is good for the soul.

🙂 I left futility behind a long time ago.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

🙂 I left futility behind a long time ago.

Ah, if we could! But as long as we're alive, we're in a futile battle with our mortality. As you might guess, I've been told that I'm not always the most cheerful chap. 😀