I remember some years ago when Instagram was just starting to take off, how it was fun, novel, new. People shared horrible little square photos with funky borders and ultra-contrasty filters, photos of nothing, photos for no reason. And we all enjoyed it. We didn’t share a certain number of times to get the algorithm on our side, we didn’t curate our feeds, we didn’t automatically open the app with our eager fingers before we even knew why we’d unlocked our phones. Back then, social media was for socializing, letting your friends and family know what you were up to. For some, I know, it still is that (if quite horribly evolved and corrupted). But for many of us, especially (I think) visual artists, social media, and particularly Instagram, has become a monster of comparison, game-playing, maneuvering, and advertising. Often enough — too often — we post because we have to, not because we want to.
But every now and then, we prove that social media can still be used for good. Every now and then we make the choice to use these services as they were originally intended, and we get to experience something more than pixels flying across a tiny display. Every now and then, we make real friends through social media. Recently, I got the pleasure of doing just that.
Kenzie and I had some mutual friends, and we are both photographers (she a better one than I, let’s be honest), so I reached out and asked if she’d want to get together and shoot sometime. She said yes, and an outing was planned. And it was great. Meeting new friends, chatting over coffee, taking photos just for the joy of it — what a liberating experience when compared to the hours I spend online comparing and filling my mind with junk food. This is what social media was meant to do, this is what it still can do if we give up the game of trying to be better and do better than those around us, this game of looking and acting other than we are, curating our lives so we’re seen in a light that’s not our own. From one addict to another, I implore you: put down your phone, and go make a new friend.
love,
Joel
Geeky Things
Camera: Fuji X-Pro2
Lens: Fuji 35mm f/2
Location: downtown Fayetteville, AR
Notes: As tends to happen, I’ve been getting bored lately with the colour profile I’ve been using in Capture One, and with what the colours in camera from this shoot already looked like, I decided to use Provia as a base instead. I like how they turned out.