Instagram – What is it good for?

An aid to practice

In a previous post I talked about the importance of a Focus on Learning to stay motivated when the conditions for landscape photography are not good and to maintain a sustained, long term commitment to learning the craft. There are two elements to this approach – a deliberate approach to learning and ensuring that these skills are practiced on a regular basis.

A key tool for the latter element is Instagram. I am a latecomer to Instagram, having started in November 2020 with a commitment to posting three times a week (largely maintained, COVID lockdowns and a family holiday/social media break excepted).

This is not about criticising Instagram, although I do think that social media platforms have a problem when the game they encourage focusing on likes and follows is no longer fun.

Instead, this article will outline the benefits of this commitment to publish, how it develops a routine of creating and helps establish a mindset to deal with the demons of putting your work out there, especially in an age of social media.

(For the record, at the time of writing I had just over 700 followers on Instagram - this approach is not a recipe to maximise your followers.)

Winton Wetland sunrise – most likes of 2023 so far

A routine of creating

My previous post highlighted the importance of practice – fieldcraft, camera craft and post processing – in order to create ever better images. You may be familiar with the parable of the pottery class – the members of the group that produced 30 pots, 1 per day, got much better than the other group who worked on just one pot over the 30 days.

A commitment to posting three times a week puts me in the first group. There have been times over the past 3 years when meeting this commitment has been challenging. I have stayed up late to work on an image only because of this commitment. Sometimes I end up posting an image that is good but not great. Sometimes I have had to work too hard on the post-processing to get an image to good enough. Perfection is not an option.

Consistently producing at least 156 images a year to post has resulted in some very useful learnings. When I started, I thought I knew the kind of images that I would post (the types of images, the subjects, the look) – but those initial thoughts are not where I am now.

I pretty much always come away from a photography session (which I consistently do every weekend) with at least one publishable image (and a lot of images that are not good enough), no matter what the conditions. I have an efficient workflow and a set of post-processing techniques to solve problems. As a photographer these are useful skills.

This commitment to regular practice has accelerated my evolution as a photographer. I look back at older photographs and see both technical flaws that I wouldn’t make now or ways to better articulate what I was trying to communicate. By publishing work regularly, I am constantly receiving feedback and reflecting on my images. But putting work out there on social media also has its downsides that need to be faced.

Mt Buffalo fog – most likes over past 3 months

Social media demons

The demons of social media are well documented. And learning to deal with these demons is an important part of my growth as a photographer.

One challenge is drifting goals. Rather than a focus on producing images that I like, there is pressure to post images that the audience will like, to chase the likes and follows. A great example is the temptation to not post black and white images, because they always seem to do “less well” than colour. Or to focus on Reels or high colour, high contrast, wow photos (because they do “better”). Perhaps compositions are increasingly in 4x5 portrait format.

There have also been times when I feel overwhelmed with the volume of high-quality work out there. There are some amazing photographers producing work that provides much inspiration, and at times this can be demoralising. At times it is hard to see why some work gets so much attention.

One of the biggest challenges is the vagaries of the algorithm – and there is no shortage of advice on how to beat the algorithm. For example, over the past three months I have averaged a reach of less than 200 accounts for each post whereas earlier in the year, I was averaging over 700. Who knows why? Of course, there have always been gatekeepers to attention, such as editors or gallery owners, and I suspect they had their own frustrations.

And finally, there is the potential time drain – time on Instagram is time not spent planning, taking or processing photos.

On multiple occasions I have been frustrated by the vagaries of the algorithm gatekeeper, the lack of likes and slow progress in building followers. At times I have spent too much time trying to game the system or comparing myself to others. This can take its toll.

I have several mantras that constantly remind myself of why posting on Instagram is important. It is about learning, not likes. We are all at different stages of our journey and have different objectives. I need to produce the work that I want to make and put it out there. If people don’t respond to it, or it “confuses” the algorithm, so be it.

Of course, this is easier said than done – that dopamine high of a popular post is very addictive. It takes constant vigilance to ensure I am not being swayed in what I post by audience response and to manage the disappointment and frustration when an image I am proud of fails to resonate. But aren’t these challenges all artists face as they put their work out into the world?

Conclusion

Being able to put your work out to an audience is a privilege, and being able to do so on a regular basis is an amazing opportunity that should not be taken for granted.

There are many reasons why generating a following is desirable – to build an audience to sell a service or product, for example. But for me, I don’t need an audience to achieve my goals.

Being committed to regularly publishing has accelerated the learning of my photography skills. As a landscape photographer, three times a week has proven challenging but doable. It has provided the discipline to practice and through many small decisions each week has accelerated the evolution of my style, preferences and look.

While there are challenges to posting on social media, these are opportunities to understand deep down why I am posting (to learn) and, even more importantly, why I am taking photographs. This seems to be the hardest of questions. But being able to articulate this why, even as it changes over time, is the best anecdote to the short-term ups and downs of posting on social media.

A BNW pano – never going to be widely shared by IG, but who cares?