Why spend so much time and effort creating an image just so it can be swipe by someone with no attention span in less time than it takes to delete an email. There is a better class of viewers here. We create because we need to create. If people like and comment, that's great but for a long time great artists made great ard because they were driven to whether people saw it or not. No one is hitting the "like" button on art work in MOMA.
Thank you, Kevin. I think you've put your finger on something important. I don't mind if someone doesn't like my work. What I find much harder is the idea of work that took hours, days or years being consumed in a second. That's one of the reasons I enjoy it here so much more.
I love it when people like or comment on a photo I have posted. But after years of having to deal with the restrictions and misaligned visions that dealing with clients entails I am perfectly happy to send stuff out there the moves or entertains me. If someone gets it that's great. If not, well I am still not faced with reshoots and hounding people to get paid. And I am content thinking that when I'm gone years of photos may be tossed in the garbage by my kids or someone will say "He was a genius" and there will be a massive retrospective of my work. I am leaning towards the former of course. But either way, those moments of connection when it's you and a subject and a daylight studio and everything clicks, or when you've worked an image for an hour and it comes out of the printer and into a mat and frame and makes you smile is good enough for me.
That was beautifully written. Thank you for sharing it. There's something incredibly liberating about that... being out there with your subject and the daylight as your studio. Thankfully, I still find immense joy in that. 😊
You have hit the nerve here, Davor. I am not a photographer, nor a person whose work depends on social media, but what you described is pretty much it. For Instagram, for social gatherings, for things with shiny wrappers and overly-curated facades in mass culture.
It is also true that the body will react first. The body doesn't lie, just as we are repelled by certain scents, tastes, and people, we are repelled by manifestations of certain types of behaviors and visuals of those behaviors.
Instagram has become an accumulation of all of them at this point (barring the taste and smell). It became the flat average of all those things we used to find aesthetically pleasing, copied and replicated and augmented to the point of distortion. And with every averaging and every augmentation it has been stripped of yet another layer of what made those things beautiful to begin with.
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment, Pearl. I think you may have articulated something I hadn't fully realised myself. It's not that beauty disappears. It gradually gets replaced by its endlessly replicated version. Somewhere in that process, it loses its vitality.
Yes, not only replicated from a single beautiful artifact of someone's creative mind, but replicated from a collective average of many such things. That's the same reason why AI generated art, writing, and music lacks "something" while being palatable and even looking somewhat close to an accepted standard of beauty. Because the math of sweeping the entirety of human recorded knowledge and imagery is precisely that - it is a projected image of the collective average. Quite literally. Instagram did that too. Just naturally. Over repetition and replication of general accepted standards.
Thank you for this essay and sharing your thoughts and your photographs. They make the world of average fade and voices like yours stand out 🩶
"Every time I ask someone whether Instagram is important, I get the same answer. It is. If you’re a photographer and you want your work to be seen, you need to be there. And most likely, that’s true."
It's not. They're lying. Probably to themselves. I can think of some people who do well with IG, and none of them are photographers. It used to be a good place for photography (if not photographers), but those days are gone. There is only one good use for IG for us, and that's just to have a place where people can see our work if they want to look for us.
Thank you for your comment. That's how it seems to me as well. It's become a place where people can get a quick first impression of our work. And that's about it.
Thank you for your comment and for encouraging me to move forward without Instagram. The only reason I kept thinking about it was the feeling that a photographer is supposed to have an Instagram account, otherwise they risk becoming, as you put it, invisible. Organic growth feels much more natural to me. Thank you.
Davor, I believe you know how I feel about your art, and you as a wonderfully cool and fun human😁 I had never wanted to be on social media, but my daughter put me on facebook. Truthfully, I tried, but realized how pretentious people were. A writer and ghost story teller, suggested to try Substack, that theres plenty to read. After awhile, I felt weird just reading, so because I know nothing about these phones, ( the hippie in me) I never figured out posts. Anyhow, now I do energy of the day reads through astrology. Im not on instagram, and have no desire to be.
That makes perfect sense. I think it's much better to find the platform that feels natural to you than to force yourself to be somewhere you don't enjoy. I also smiled at the "hippie in me." 😄 I'm glad you found your own way with the daily astrology readings. Unfortunately, I'm not really a fan of astrology. I wish I were, though, because of you. 😊
You’ve really touched a nerve here Davor! I totally relate to your post. There is so much more depth here on Substack; be it photography/art/ writing or whatever creative area it is. Instagram is fleeting, more pretentious, etc.
Thank you for your comment, Ineska. I completely agree. The only difficult part about Substack is surviving those early days, when it feels like no one is reading and you're writing into the void. That was certainly my experience, and from what I've heard, many others have felt the same.
You have described this so well, Davor. When I first joined instagram years ago, long before Facebook purchased it, it was such an inspiring place to be for photographers. I made beautiful connections with people and those connections felt genuine. As time went on, all I started to see were ads and then reels. And things got very busy and loud... to the point where I wasn't even seeing the work of my favourite photographers anymore... I was being subjected to ads 90% of the time.
I left. And then I missed people so I tried to return, and I tried to feel that initial inspiration I used to feel there, but it never came back. It's just an advertising platform, either from businesses trying to sell you a product, or regular people trying to sell you a lifestyle.
When I came to substack, I felt the way I used to feel on IG, only better. People are so wonderful here, and they truly want to write thoughtful things and read what others have to share. It feels like the most genuine place on the internet at this time... I truly hope that doesn't change. I will be heartbroken if it turns into another IG or Facebook.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Jaime. Unlike you, I don't have those fond early memories of Instagram because I joined far too late. But I enjoy Substack just as much as you do. I used to write quite a lot on Medium, and then an online friend, someone I came to think of as a mentor, suggested that I move to Substack because, in his words, it was the best place on the internet for writers. So far, I can't say he was wrong. 😊 I hope it stays this way too.
I appreciate this description of the "feeling of IG" in such relatable language. You outline what I, as a non-photograher/writer/creator/artist, who doesn't know anything about anything, experienced. I am long gone from the platform...
Thank you, Deborah. That means a lot to me, especially because you don't come at it as a photographer. I hoped the essay was really about attention rather than photography, so I'm glad it resonated with your own experience.
I can't imagine the pressure a creative experiences under that kind of scrutiny in a landscape that makes so many demands of you personally and artistically.
I can totally agree with you, Davor. On Instagram it doesn't feel like real engagement and if you are not into posting picture perfect images all day you get bored really easily. People are missing engagement with depth, real conversations and high quality feedback.
Thank you for your comment, Phil. I don't think I'll delete it. I'll probably just leave it inactive... or maybe not. The thing is, I'd like to pursue artistic photography more seriously, and if Instagram eventually becomes necessary for that, I'll simply have to learn how to live with it. For now, it can simply stay where it is.
I appreciate this so much. I had years of great experiences on Instagram and experienced a photographer community that was so supportive and genuinely connected. Many of us became friends and did photo excursions (not a class or profit thing, just fun) in real life. But I was physically ill from meta policies, the constant stream of ads, the algorithm that stopped showing me connections.
I came to substack to write in ways I couldn’t on IG, and to share photography and the beauty of the world around me. I’m still figuring it out and finding my voice here. I have a few followers on the app, but most engagement is people reading my newsletters.
So glad you’ve found and nurture what fuels you, it shows me it can be done here.
Why spend so much time and effort creating an image just so it can be swipe by someone with no attention span in less time than it takes to delete an email. There is a better class of viewers here. We create because we need to create. If people like and comment, that's great but for a long time great artists made great ard because they were driven to whether people saw it or not. No one is hitting the "like" button on art work in MOMA.
Thank you, Kevin. I think you've put your finger on something important. I don't mind if someone doesn't like my work. What I find much harder is the idea of work that took hours, days or years being consumed in a second. That's one of the reasons I enjoy it here so much more.
I love it when people like or comment on a photo I have posted. But after years of having to deal with the restrictions and misaligned visions that dealing with clients entails I am perfectly happy to send stuff out there the moves or entertains me. If someone gets it that's great. If not, well I am still not faced with reshoots and hounding people to get paid. And I am content thinking that when I'm gone years of photos may be tossed in the garbage by my kids or someone will say "He was a genius" and there will be a massive retrospective of my work. I am leaning towards the former of course. But either way, those moments of connection when it's you and a subject and a daylight studio and everything clicks, or when you've worked an image for an hour and it comes out of the printer and into a mat and frame and makes you smile is good enough for me.
That was beautifully written. Thank you for sharing it. There's something incredibly liberating about that... being out there with your subject and the daylight as your studio. Thankfully, I still find immense joy in that. 😊
You have hit the nerve here, Davor. I am not a photographer, nor a person whose work depends on social media, but what you described is pretty much it. For Instagram, for social gatherings, for things with shiny wrappers and overly-curated facades in mass culture.
It is also true that the body will react first. The body doesn't lie, just as we are repelled by certain scents, tastes, and people, we are repelled by manifestations of certain types of behaviors and visuals of those behaviors.
Instagram has become an accumulation of all of them at this point (barring the taste and smell). It became the flat average of all those things we used to find aesthetically pleasing, copied and replicated and augmented to the point of distortion. And with every averaging and every augmentation it has been stripped of yet another layer of what made those things beautiful to begin with.
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment, Pearl. I think you may have articulated something I hadn't fully realised myself. It's not that beauty disappears. It gradually gets replaced by its endlessly replicated version. Somewhere in that process, it loses its vitality.
Yes, not only replicated from a single beautiful artifact of someone's creative mind, but replicated from a collective average of many such things. That's the same reason why AI generated art, writing, and music lacks "something" while being palatable and even looking somewhat close to an accepted standard of beauty. Because the math of sweeping the entirety of human recorded knowledge and imagery is precisely that - it is a projected image of the collective average. Quite literally. Instagram did that too. Just naturally. Over repetition and replication of general accepted standards.
Thank you for this essay and sharing your thoughts and your photographs. They make the world of average fade and voices like yours stand out 🩶
Thank you so much. That was a beautiful thought, and it means a lot to me. 🩶
"Every time I ask someone whether Instagram is important, I get the same answer. It is. If you’re a photographer and you want your work to be seen, you need to be there. And most likely, that’s true."
It's not. They're lying. Probably to themselves. I can think of some people who do well with IG, and none of them are photographers. It used to be a good place for photography (if not photographers), but those days are gone. There is only one good use for IG for us, and that's just to have a place where people can see our work if they want to look for us.
I wrote about it here:
https://kevinhansenphotoart.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/158264235
Thank you for your comment. That's how it seems to me as well. It's become a place where people can get a quick first impression of our work. And that's about it.
I tried to access the link, but it is private.
Sorry, it looks like that's a logged-in creator link. Here it is:
https://kevinhansenphotoart.substack.com/p/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-instagram
Dear Davor.
Reading this article felt like I could have written it!
I have stopped counting the number of times I gave Instagram a chance. Something there never truly clicked for me.
No real echo. No feelings. No genuine life.
It feels like a gigantic and exhausting mall!
From my understanding of you and your work, I’d say this:
Don’t fall into the trap of fearing that if you don’t post on Instagram, you will go unnoticed.
Stick to your instinct.
Remain true to yourself.
Feel joyful and present.
And if it happens to be here - like I and many others, I suspect - then nothing wrong with that.
Let what needs to be unfold, slowly and organically.
Thank you for your comment and for encouraging me to move forward without Instagram. The only reason I kept thinking about it was the feeling that a photographer is supposed to have an Instagram account, otherwise they risk becoming, as you put it, invisible. Organic growth feels much more natural to me. Thank you.
Little mantra: Trust over fear. 💫
Makes sense. I'll remember that😀
Instagram feels superficial.
Davor, I believe you know how I feel about your art, and you as a wonderfully cool and fun human😁 I had never wanted to be on social media, but my daughter put me on facebook. Truthfully, I tried, but realized how pretentious people were. A writer and ghost story teller, suggested to try Substack, that theres plenty to read. After awhile, I felt weird just reading, so because I know nothing about these phones, ( the hippie in me) I never figured out posts. Anyhow, now I do energy of the day reads through astrology. Im not on instagram, and have no desire to be.
That makes perfect sense. I think it's much better to find the platform that feels natural to you than to force yourself to be somewhere you don't enjoy. I also smiled at the "hippie in me." 😄 I'm glad you found your own way with the daily astrology readings. Unfortunately, I'm not really a fan of astrology. I wish I were, though, because of you. 😊
Thank you my friend🤗
You’ve really touched a nerve here Davor! I totally relate to your post. There is so much more depth here on Substack; be it photography/art/ writing or whatever creative area it is. Instagram is fleeting, more pretentious, etc.
Thank you for your comment, Ineska. I completely agree. The only difficult part about Substack is surviving those early days, when it feels like no one is reading and you're writing into the void. That was certainly my experience, and from what I've heard, many others have felt the same.
You have described this so well, Davor. When I first joined instagram years ago, long before Facebook purchased it, it was such an inspiring place to be for photographers. I made beautiful connections with people and those connections felt genuine. As time went on, all I started to see were ads and then reels. And things got very busy and loud... to the point where I wasn't even seeing the work of my favourite photographers anymore... I was being subjected to ads 90% of the time.
I left. And then I missed people so I tried to return, and I tried to feel that initial inspiration I used to feel there, but it never came back. It's just an advertising platform, either from businesses trying to sell you a product, or regular people trying to sell you a lifestyle.
When I came to substack, I felt the way I used to feel on IG, only better. People are so wonderful here, and they truly want to write thoughtful things and read what others have to share. It feels like the most genuine place on the internet at this time... I truly hope that doesn't change. I will be heartbroken if it turns into another IG or Facebook.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Jaime. Unlike you, I don't have those fond early memories of Instagram because I joined far too late. But I enjoy Substack just as much as you do. I used to write quite a lot on Medium, and then an online friend, someone I came to think of as a mentor, suggested that I move to Substack because, in his words, it was the best place on the internet for writers. So far, I can't say he was wrong. 😊 I hope it stays this way too.
What is Medium? I've heard of the name, and I know it is a platform for writers, but how is it different from Substack?
I appreciate this description of the "feeling of IG" in such relatable language. You outline what I, as a non-photograher/writer/creator/artist, who doesn't know anything about anything, experienced. I am long gone from the platform...
Thank you, Deborah. That means a lot to me, especially because you don't come at it as a photographer. I hoped the essay was really about attention rather than photography, so I'm glad it resonated with your own experience.
I can't imagine the pressure a creative experiences under that kind of scrutiny in a landscape that makes so many demands of you personally and artistically.
Thank you. I imagine every creative feels that pressure in one way or another. I suppose all we can do is keep making work that feels honest to us.
I can totally agree with you, Davor. On Instagram it doesn't feel like real engagement and if you are not into posting picture perfect images all day you get bored really easily. People are missing engagement with depth, real conversations and high quality feedback.
Any plans on deleting your instagram account?
Thank you for your comment, Phil. I don't think I'll delete it. I'll probably just leave it inactive... or maybe not. The thing is, I'd like to pursue artistic photography more seriously, and if Instagram eventually becomes necessary for that, I'll simply have to learn how to live with it. For now, it can simply stay where it is.
Always trust your body/instincts. If you listen, they are there for you-- when you are present.
I'm not a photographer, just a fan. Thank you for expressing your instinctual leanings away from Instagram.
I appreciate this so much. I had years of great experiences on Instagram and experienced a photographer community that was so supportive and genuinely connected. Many of us became friends and did photo excursions (not a class or profit thing, just fun) in real life. But I was physically ill from meta policies, the constant stream of ads, the algorithm that stopped showing me connections.
I came to substack to write in ways I couldn’t on IG, and to share photography and the beauty of the world around me. I’m still figuring it out and finding my voice here. I have a few followers on the app, but most engagement is people reading my newsletters.
So glad you’ve found and nurture what fuels you, it shows me it can be done here.