On Instagram, stress, and life...
If you've followed me and my work for any amount of time you'll know I have a very up and down relationship with social media.
I feel the pull to post, the siren call to share share share... I'm proud of the work I create, whether it's photographs, writings, or podcasts. But I also despise the feeling of needing to play by rules of all the different platforms and struggle with the feeling of "why am I bothering with this?" and "what's my endgame here?" when it comes to all of this.
So I post regularly for a while... then I don't post for a month because I'm just done with it... but inevitably the call is too strong or I make a photo I just want to put out there and share... and I'm back at it again.
I have no idea what I'm trying to accomplish... other than just sharing the things I create.
I know I've spoken and written about it in the past, the mindset of today's culture that has us all feeling the pressure to somehow monetize our creative pursuits, to chase that "side hustle" because god forbid we just create for the joy of creating anymore.
Bah!
Look, I don't know about you, but for me life has been way too stressful as it is... from the pandemic and bigger issues in the world down to the more intimate issues that plague us all, family drama, jobs, money, you know the drill.
So why bother letting social media be ANOTHER stress we don't need. Why let it push us to feel like we are obligated to perform like a dancing monkey at their request...
Which is why I started to experiment.
I had been seeing a few VERY talented photographers that I follow on Instagram that were posting their amazing work and not saying a single word about it. No captions, no fancy quotes to go with the photo, not even a single hashtag...
They just... shared the image with no other context besides "BOOM" here's a photo I made, look at it, think about it, draw your own conclusions, or scroll by... either way it doesn't matter.
And so I started posting photos with no captions and adding just a few hashtags in the first comment... and it was so. damn. freeing!
So for now I think I'll keep doing that, at least on my photography Instagram account. Just photos, no words, only a couple hashtags(c'mon, it's baby steps alright?! lol)
If only I could figure out a way to do the same thing with my AIC Stories Instagram account... but it's kind of hard to run a social media account for a storytelling podcast without using words, so... if you have any ideas I'm all ears!
For now, I'm just going to include a few favorite photos I've shared recently so you can see them nice and big and not squished down to phone sized for Instagram only.
I hope you have a great weekend and I'll talk to ya soon.
