The rise and fall of Instagram (?)

DownUnder said:
Oh, so we are all still here... well, why not?

A little lateral thinking from me today.

Basically, my 'beef' with Flickr et al, is I do not like giving a third party any uncontrolled control over my photography or my thoughts. They are uniquely mine, I take responsibility for them - and I prefer to retain my ownership to them.

I never considered Flickr or almost all the 'business' image sites. A few I seriously considered, but decided no. As ko-fe has so aptly written, almost all were (and still are) 'dumpsters' for bad photography. Nobody I know (including me) has ever made a sale from anything they posted on Flickr, it's too much of a rubbish tip of mostly bad photography. Some good, very little of it is, all lost in the mass of dross.

A few decades ago I did one of the early photo sites - no name, it's the one named after an item many fishermen use. Same problem. Too many photos posted, too much crap. Buyers didn't like it and stayed away from the site.

For six years I had my own small stock photo web site. I 'specialise' in a some areas of photography not many do, so I had (still have) markets for my images. The $$ was okay, not enough to live on, but not pocket money either, as so many amateurs I know make with $5 or even 50 cent bottom-feed sales.

I took the basic precaution of making my site password-protected, login only. This was not easy back then. I searched until I found an ISP offering this. To view my folders you had to email me, reply to a (brief) questionnaire and give one reference, usually a web site if you or your company had one.

Nine out of ten queries were from browsers who made the mistake of listing all the sites where they had posted work. Having identified them as time-wasters, I declined their request. A few turned nasty. Most disappeared.

The remaining one in ten was a legitimate publisher/media agency who came, browsed and often bought an image or even a series. All paid promptly and I got repeat sales over the years. Nice and easy, it was.

Not really. For all success it was a lot of work. In the 'mid-10s stock markets declined as amateurs desperate to see their work published flooded the 'net with free photos. I saw the inevitable happening, bowed out of the scene and closed my site.

To me Flickr, Instagram and the like are places mostly for the socially needy who want little pats on the head. Ego-gratification is not a strong motivation for me, so I pass.

My partner now and then logs into IG and Facebook. I sigh and bite my tongue. Last week I had my attention drawn to one "communication" there. "Hi, how are you?" "Oh, I'm home tonight, cutting my toenails."
Back to photography.

What all this boils down to is that it really all depends on what one wants to get from posting one's images, and just as important, how much time effort one is prepared to commit to get it.

That's all from me. Much too long a post, as usual. Anyway.
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I don`t think Flickr and Insta were designed to be business sites although there seems to be an increasing usage on Insta by pro`s.
I can only think that it must be worth their while
I just treat them as social media .
I enjoy seeing what other photographers are doing .
Beginning and end of my expectations .
I have no real views on "socially needy" although if you are isolated for some reason .... maybe health ... I can see how such sites may provide some sort of benefit.
I`m from a generation where you took a picture looked at it once and put it in a drawer, so todays photo sites are (maybe) a step forward ... I think is what I`m trying to say ?
As for ego gratification ,whilst it is pleasant if somebody likes what you have done ,I for one also find it embarrassing too.
So I can`t really speak for those who are doing this for a living (obviously) but for amateurs such as myself I find them interesting and sometimes informative source.
 
I have accounts on Meta and Instagram, as well as X (aka Twitter) and a few others. I only very rarely look at them, I set up the accounts an eon ago when I thought they might be useful for promoting my photography business. They never proved to be of much worth in that, and what passes for "social interaction" on these sites is unappealing to me in the extreme, but I've kept them around. Occasionally, I get a note from someone on one or the other of them (notified to me by email) that's worth pursuing, usually because it's an old friend whom I've have lost contact with otherwise.

What the companies these sites are maintained by are trying to do, and why, is of no interest to me whatever. Forums like this one and a few others do a much better job of creating a community of photographers to discuss and share work with, finding an audience for my work (when I was working) has been much better addressed by going down the list of photography buyers (books, magazines, publishers, etc) and making phone calls.

G
 
I only joined Flickr because RFF and a few other sites only took photos from hosting sites. Nowadays I rarely use it & can't remember the last time i uploaded a photo to the site. I've never found it of interest photographically.
For me, the attraction of Instagram is the timely nature of many of the posts. I can see photos from Todd Korol & Michael Drew of the Calgary Stampede just hours or a day after the event. Jim Herrington is a friend of mine & I find out that his The Climbers' Book gets printed in an Italian edition. Two summers ago, by coincidence, on Instagram I found out we were both in the Pale di San Martino area of the Dolomites at the same time...& we were able to meet up while going in opposite directions on the same trail. That sort of thing doesn't happen on forums.
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Briefly (ha), another reason I reckon many avoid such sites, is that the proliferation of images, mostly meh! some quite good, a few excellent, is that too much perusing those photographs could easily start to affect our own image-making. I know I am especially prone to this, and for that (and a few other too complex to write about here) I stay away from them

All such sites have positive and negative elements associated with them. Many of which are basically from us. Those of us "of a certain age" have, or so I like to believe, learned enough about ourselves to know what to avoid to not be too adversely affected or influenced by the content of said sites.

As a personal example, after decades of trying to prove otherwise, I now accept that if I drink an entire bottle of red wine, however good the vintage, while perusing the internet tonight, I will pay the price for this indulgence tomorrow, and also possibly damage some of my brain cells (according to my loving partner the jury is out for me on the latter point, so no more about this will be said). So I've had to moderate my wine intake, whether or not I like it. The same applies to my looking at photo web sites. I do it in small doses lest some of the better images I see will affect my own visual perception during my next photo shoot.

As I happen to photograph mostly modern buildings, old houses and Indonesian markets, the likelihood of all this happening may well be very slight, but at my age it pays to be cautious.

Anyway, for the moment, occasional visits to the RFF galleries to see what has been posted lately, and checking the new posts by the few photographers I actively follow, satisfies my passive urge to achieve greatness as a photographer. Flickr, Instagram et al are too much like dumpsters (thank you, ko.fe for this term!) for me to visit regularly, altho' I do drop in now and then, out of curiosity.

I haven't done that lately, but you never know...
 
Maybe I am missing something, but I am not enamored with Instagram. It only allows you to load itsy, bitsy, tiny images, it basically forces you to use a tablet or phone (which means my images which are post processed on PCs) have to be transferred first to a different device and worst of all over the past year or two it prevents me logging on altogether. I tried with two separate accounts (each with a different email address) but Instagram has apparently decided I am not trustworthy and will instead send me a code to my (correct) email address first to confirm it's really me. But the code never, ever - despite many, many attempts - ever turns up (and yes it IS the correct address and NO it is not in the email's junk mail or trash bin. So, effectively I am locked out. Computer life sucks sometimes. (But Instagram is crap anyway).
 
peterm1 said:
Maybe I am missing something, but I am not enamored with Instagram. It only allows you to load itsy, bitsy, tiny images, it basically forces you to use a tablet or phone (which means my images which are post processed on PCs) have to be transferred first to a different device and worst of all over the past year or two it prevents me logging on altogether. I tried with two separate accounts (each with a different email address) but Instagram has apparently decided I am not trustworthy and will instead send me a code to my (correct) email address first to confirm it's really me. But the code never, ever - despite many, many attempts - ever turns up (and yes it IS the correct address and NO it is not in the email's junk mail or trash bin. So, effectively I am locked out. Computer life sucks sometimes. (But Instagram is crap anyway).
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Instagram does work on computers....both to view or upload. I'm not sure what's the cause of it not working for you.
Honestly, for photographs my #1 is still seeing printed photographs and i make an effort to see shows and visit museums in foreign countries. Any screen viewing for me is a pale version.
I don't see either forums or Instagram as any kind of gold standard. I have no interest in 'the lastest thing i bought,' 55 pages of images on Kentmere 400 in Legacy pro, or 60 pages of 'my cat' photos. To me all things on the computer are like turning the pages of a newspaper, read what interests you and take it for what it's worth.
Kudos to wlewisiii.... his post about the Lee Miller movie is the most timely piece i've read here in a while.
 
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I think the value of Flickr is that it provides a space where you can post photos knowing somebody may be looking at them. Sounds simple, but by extension if you are a self critical photographer you'll want to imagine they aren't laughing at your pictures either. So it can become a useful tool to help in your own critical judgement and not have to rely on your proud mother-in-law telling you 'you take some lovely photographs'.
 
Flickr, for me, is the place where I can put photos for others who want to see them. I don't print anymore even though I believe a paper print is still the best way to view a photo. But I can share my photos online in a semi-cohesive manner by posting them on my Flickr pages and give someone interested a link to them. Flickr doesn't require a person to join to view photos as far as I know. Plus it's nice when someone just pops up out of nowhere to say they like a certain photo.

...............
 
SWB said:
I think the value of Flickr is that it provides a space where you can post photos knowing somebody may be looking at them. Sounds simple, but by extension if you are a self critical photographer you'll want to imagine they aren't laughing at your pictures either. So it can become a useful tool to help in your own critical judgement and not have to rely on your proud mother-in-law telling you 'you take some lovely photographs'.
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My favoured site is also Flickr. It has a pretty unique way of driving "eyes on page" to your own postings by allowing every member to follow Groups as well as Individuals. If you place any photo in a Group, especially one with a big membership that is dedicated to photography or a genre of photography, you can be pretty well assured someone will look at it even if it is only a cursory / passing look. But, if people like what they see, they can "like" the photo and or comment on it ns also follow you. They can also check to see what other photographers you follow and ditto with other Groups you follow, thus allowing people to explore a wider network and find new sources of inspiration. In my view Flickr works better than any other social networking site that I know - and it is mainly down to these attributes. Other sites have some of these attributes - Facebook for example has Groups too, but somehow it all seems to work better on Flick probably because it is dedicated only to photography and so the myriad of other posters and Groups do not get in the way.
 
Deardorff38 said:
Instagram does work on computers....both to view or upload. I'm not sure what's the cause of it not working for you.
Honestly, for photographs my #1 is still seeing printed photographs and i make an effort to see shows and visit museums in foreign countries. Any screen viewing for me is a pale version.
I don't see either forums or Instagram as any kind of gold standard. I have no interest in 'the lastest thing i bought,' 55 pages of images on Kentmere 400 in Legacy pro, or 60 pages of 'my cat' photos. To me all things on the computer are like turning the pages of a newspaper, read what interests you and take it for what it's worth.
Kudos to wlewisiii.... his post about the Lee Miller movie is the most timely piece i've read here in a while.
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It used to do so - or at least you could view content on a Browser. Maybe that changed - though I think you always needed to use a tablet or phone to upload. But as I say I just found this to be bloody inconvenient because with few exceptions my photos come from a PC. The main point of any of these sites is or should be to drive "eyes on page" and hopefully help people discover your work. But as I noted above in my post about Flickr, I find that site to be immeasurably better in this regard. This is one reason why I am not interested in hard copy photos or even in a dedicated web page set up and administered by myself. Neither provide a means of producing "traffic".
 
I started using Instagram only because it was the main way that our target market and audience consumes content and communicates. Social media engagement is big in sports brands and organizations, so I had to bite the bullet, sign up and gather followers in the target market. The main side effect is that I'm following and looking at things completely unrelated to work, which is exactly what IG wants, more engagement and more user preference data. Admittedly, I get a lot of enjoyment from looking at watches, pens, notebooks and camera gear, and I've made some fun friendships and professional contacts through IG, so the side effects aren't a complete wash. I've even found some great camera bags through IG that I wouldn't have seen otherwise, like Alpaka and bellroy. But the increase in ads, and the promotion of irrelevant reels is just such a timewasting avenue.
 
For me the primary "problem" with social media is that in the past -- not Instagram, however - I never had an Instagram account -- when I shared my work and got a sizable following and "likes" started flowing in, it slowly started to creep into my consideration when taking pictures. It started off inconnus with thoughts such as: "Hm. This kind of shot will likely be popular". However this kept re-occurring more and more to the point where I felt that I was no longer shooting for myself but for some invisible audience.

I'll go out on a limb and say that we all like praise and kind words, as well as having our work recognized. However, sadly this represents a sort of vulnerability for the social media companies to exploit.

So, for myself, in the end I felt I had to make the call to either live with these kind of mental "nudges" or to go back shooting things that were interesting to me and me only in that moment. It was not an easy decision, but ultimately I chose the latter. This is of course my personal path and not everyone will have the same experience, but I think it is a conscious choice we need to make.
 
Instagram is, first and foremost, a data harvesting site. That is why it has always been terrible for photographers, and always will be terrible for photographers (in fact if you look into the history of the site it originally had nothing to do with photos at all). The site is designed to generate clicks and uploads. Its content is now hidden from the public at large so they can have even more specific control over the users of the site.
 
I make photos that I like or find interesting. I post them. If/when others view them and comment, I read the comments. Sometimes I respond with a thank you. Rarely a conversation develops. I sometimes look at others' work, etc. That's about it.

G
 
peterm1 said:
It used to do so - or at least you could view content on a Browser. Maybe that changed - though I think you always needed to use a tablet or phone to upload. But as I say I just found this to be bloody inconvenient because with few exceptions my photos come from a PC. The main point of any of these sites is or should be to drive "eyes on page" and hopefully help people discover your work. But as I noted above in my post about Flickr, I find that site to be immeasurably better in this regard. This is one reason why I am not interested in hard copy photos or even in a dedicated web page set up and administered by myself. Neither provide a means of producing "traffic".
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There is clearly a very very wide range of ways in which people relate to photography.....for some photography is about physical photographs silver gelatin, platinum, alt processes.... which have nothing to do with the cyber world.
 
Deardorff38 said:
There is clearly a very very wide range of ways in which people relate to photography.....for some photography is about physical photographs silver gelatin, platinum, alt processes.... which have nothing to do with the cyber world.
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Yes, I get that. I was just expressing my point of view as my motivations and methods are different. Again speaking personally I used to print my photos out. A very few of them ended up on a wall in my house but the vast majority (many of them just as good as those I hung) sat in a folder in a drawer never to be seen by anyone, pretty much including myself. So personally, I lost interest in doing that. But if you or others like to print I certainly have no problems with that. Different strokes and all that. :)
 
... Oh yes, I occasionally print some of my photos too. To me, there's no better way to present a photo than in a print ... but in practical terms, I only have so much wall space to hang anything, and photos sitting in an album on my book shelf don't get seen by very many people. So I do FAR more posting than printing.

(I also incorporate a set of photos into a video presentation from time to time, because that is the second best way for me to see them and characterize what I felt about them using ordering plus transitions and musical accompaniment, but I've found only a few people on these photo forums who agree with that. As &peterm1 said above, "Different strokes and all that." ;) )

G
 
I have only two of my photos hanging on my wall and they are only doing so because Stewart "sparrow" late of this parish cajoled me into doing so.
There was a condition ...that he did the printing to his taste.
That`s the only reason they are still hanging there .
 
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