Instagram and the Struggle to Create

Instagram is the go-to platform for many photographers who want to share their work for fun or to market themselves to their community. Lately, a lot of photographers will strive to become “Instafamous” on the platform by getting the most engagement on their creative content. I have fallen under the spell of Instagram notoriety many times and I can definitively say that it can be unhealthy for my mind AND business.

Instagram, like every other social media platform, can become addicting and narrow our perceptions on what we see as quality content. Social media is where people advertise happy moments and fun adventures, not reality. It is essentially a highlight reel. This has led many users, including myself at times, to assume that our lives are boring.


This is especially the case for photographers who see other creators traveling the world or working with big-name brands to create amazing content that goes viral. Many of us smaller accounts envy the larger ones as we wish we could achieve the same success because we somehow decided that the measure of our skill and creativity is the number of followers we have on social media. This is a highly contagious and toxic trap that you should avoid falling into at all costs. We have all been there, but for someone like me who puts content on social media t advertise myself and my brand, this mindset can seriously affect my business and my mental health.


Speaking of business, there are some companies who will use your Instagram post in their advertisements without your permission. According to a New York court ruling, posting content on Instagram essentially grants the platform to sublicense your images. This is a serious problem for photographers who make a living off the images they produce; we do not just hand them out for free to companies. Posting images on your public Instagram page grants Instagram licensing rights to your photos and they therefore can sell your images to other clients.

Now, for most people this is not an issue as they post content on Instagram for the fun of it and do not care to license their images, but for professional photographers, we have to be careful about what we post on social media. We cannot post any of the work we create professionally and cannot control what our clients post. There are a handful of alternatives to Instagram that I personally recommend.

500px is a photography-centric platform built for professionals and creatives specifically in mind, and Flickr has been around for a while and is trusted by many professionals. I have accounts on both platforms, though I use 500px more frequently as it is more engaging.


Mental health is a clearly important issue and has affected me with social media as a direct cause. Rather than be motivated to go create engaging content, I would sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that I will never be as good as some of the people I follow, and in turn completely lose any motivation. My solution? Get off of social media for a day or even week and go to an art museum or walk around the city to get motivated, breath some fresh air, and find inspiration. Reality is often more interesting than what you see on a screen.


Note that when I started this post, I said that social media “can” be unhealthy for my mind and business. There are times when other people on the platform have engaged with me about my content or a mutual interest and that has been very educational and interesting. Other times I have had potential clients see the kind of work I have on my page or my website and they have reached out to me for jobs. Technology helps me reach more people and maximize my business. It also helps me meet new people and expand my horizons.


Everything in moderation, though, as there are always unintended consequences with technology and social media platforms host a variety of people with different opinions and objectives. That being said, just have fun with it. Do not take social media too seriously because it is not meant to be taken seriously; it is meant to be fun.

Sources:
https://fstoppers.com/legal/new-york-court-rules-posting-instagram-photographer-gave-her-exclusive-licensing-477136
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/03/how-instagram-changed-our-world