Why we photograph
It’s been more than a week now without instagram. There are no signs of withdrawal, no desire to peep at some profiles and no feelings of “o yeah, I gotta put that in my story because the world needs to see (how I load a Kodak Portra in a camera like it was nothing. It’s is nothing).
My daily screen time went down by 18% which is more or less the time I’ve spent on Instagram before, so that makes sense.
But there’s a downside: I am questioning a lot. While looking at my photo library I realise how much photos were taken with Instagram in the back of my mind. They wouldn’t exist in a world without a social media bubble called analog photography. A hoop, a vintage car, a gas station at night. At least in my own world I at least should have checked if there’s any detail of interest, any sort of conversation between a vintage car and some of it’s surroundings, anything funny or colourful in that composition that is worth pressing the shutter.
But I didn’t. I took a desperate amount of photos for the gram and not for me. It’s not about analog versus digital, it’s rather about a good photo versus a shit shot. No matter the medium, a good photo remains a good photo.
Mamiya 645pro, Kodak Tmax400 pushed 1 stop