I wrote this article a little while back, regarding Instagram photos, and the perception of the culture around Instagram 'bloggers' and 'stars' in general – it was inspired by news of a particular teenage Instagram star giving up the social media platform altogether after seemingly having an epiphany about how 'deceitful' it was…
Since it is tangentially related to photography, and (I think) a very interesting topic, I thought I would post my piece on the subject here, to see what you all think about it.
See - this is exactly what makes me crazy about social media... This crazy assumption of that its supposed to be real - as if we should be prepared to share our entire selves with brutal honesty, with the world. Uhm... No... Not gonna happen!
I play on Instagram a bit now and then, but only as another vehicle for photography... Not as a way to document my day... I play on Flickr when I think about it, and otherwise, apart from 365, I stay away from social media completely...
I agree with what you wrote... Photography for me is a creative endeavour and an escape... Not a journalistic effort to display the truth, or at any rate A truth, given that for the most part, observed truth is subjective... If the standard you are holding yourself to when participating in social media is a pure objective unvarnished truth, well - more power to you and good luck with that! It is not something I think I could ever achieve...
Well said Kit. As thinking beings it is up to us to decide what we want to believe and to differentiate between truth,lies,exaggeration and manipulation.
Advertising does it all the time and most of us accept that what we see on/in an ad is not truly representative. Food never looks the same, people are airbrushed and things are photographed to make them look bigger - why I always have my tape measure and look for dimensions when buying things on line - it is amazing how often things are in fact tiny when the photo makes them look huge. Advertising banks on those who are gullible and believe what they see without question. The news is the same - just because it is in the news doesn't make it true.
There are some who do lay it all out there on social media and then the majority who edit, exaggerate add flourish. Either way there is criticism - you are either a liar or an attention seeker.
We have a choice about what we read, look at and participate in and a choice about how we accept and react to it.
Real life isn't always pleasant, appealing or pretty - there is nothing wrong with adding a bit of flourish!
Interesting thought. People should do as they please.
I have 2 Instagram accounts, one of which I cannot longer loggin to because Facebook is not willing to help me out, what's new. The other one is quite new and started because my sons wanted an account. So now I have 2 followers :-) It's actually a copy of my photo's on 365, a diary without quotes. I do not use any social media besides instagram and this site, probably for all the reasons mentioned...
Read the whole article and was fascinated by your interpretations. I totally agree with you - most of us do not want to let anyone into their "not-so-perfect" life in much the same way that we, as photographers, take great pride in interpreting images in ways that we feel perfect the image. I really enjoyed your article and plan to share with my photography students (middle schoolers) to get their take on it. Thanks for posting!
Yes, I have heard similar complaints about Facebook....like Essena O'Neill's insurgency: that people use it only to brag and showcase their Barbie-plastic-cotton candy lives. But Instagram was meant to be a photo sharing service so I mostly agree with your comments....if one is looking for a place to share authentic-real life-ugly hair day-broken relationships-hearts-death-crying and the like, probably need 'a whole 'nuther platform' for that....maybe that'll be next: the LET's GET REAL social media app...
One footnote tho, I have to say that I have great admiration and respect for SOOC. To me, it is equally skillful to take the pre-time, rather than post-time to create absolutely stunning images.
@moreyoulessme@northy Having recently watched several of the B&H Online videos, the photographers that do the training seem to think that the more that you get right in the camera, the better your results are going to be. Meaning, that you should do your best to think about what you are taking a picture of and how to you want to present it. Just some food for thought.
Wow, I'm glad everybody found this interesting! Thanks for all your responses…
@lbluejaye8 thank you! That sounds really fascinating – please do post and let me know what your students think of the whole thing!
@byrdlip, @northy, @moreyoulessme the SOOC thing wasn't meant to be the main focus of the article, by the way… ;) But it is an interesting topic in its own right!
Anyone who's had 'SOOC' discussions on here with me before, will perhaps remember that I always liken photography to the process of recording audio – because, of course, music is my field, and it is natural for me to think of things in this way.
Yes, you try to capture the best signal you possibly can at the time, rather than feeling relaxed about shoddy recording methods thinking 'oh, never mind, I can always fix it in post-' (as my old music technology tutor at college used to say, 'you can't polish a turd'!), but that doesn't then negate the need to polish what you do have. You can't make bad audio (or a bad photo) good at the editing stage – but you can make good audio, or a good photo, better. And why wouldn't you?
All of which ignores the digital aspect – that data conversion, either in a camera import, or an audio interface and DAW setup, necessarily 'interprets' the raw signals from the camera sensor or from the microphones, which is in itself a form of 'processing'. Just because you don't stick the JPEG into Photoshop once you've imported it from your camera, doesn't mean that image is 'unprocessed'.
(At this point, I should probably tag in @jinximages – who knows much more about this topic, and expresses it far better than I do…)
@mastermek of course people should do as they please! I am a big believer in that. But isn't one of the less savoury advances in social media recently how much easier it has become to hector and berate people whose choices you feel are 'wrong'? (See: 'troll' behaviour, etc.) This can lead to people second guessing their own choices online, because there is so much pressure to 'do' social media in a certain, 'accepted' way – it is a much more highly concentrated version of regular 'social pressure' to 'conform', etc.
@manek43509 exactly... you aim for the best possible product using all the tools in your toolkit... and this starts with the camera, understanding how to use it, and an understanding of light and composition and all the good things to capturing the image in the first place... but it doesn't have to stop there, so why should it?
That was a great read! Whilst I didn't follow Essena, I did stop by her gallery from time to time due to mutual friends. I had much the same thoughts - anyone who thinks any of it is "real" (including photography) needs to have a really long think about life in general.
The SOOC debate is one that will never go away, because it is fuelled by people with just enough knowledge to be dangerous. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, they say. Most of the SOOC proponents declare that editing is cheating, and is completely unnecessary. Of course, they have no clue that editing was a standard part of the photographic process with film.
As you quoted, “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.” – Ansel Adams. I've had that quote on my profile here since I started (the first time around a few years ago), and it really does sum up my philosophy on the topic. We create pictures. We create them by choice of shutterspeed, aperture, ISO, framing, field of view (lens focal length), light source position (whether already existing or added by us), and choosing where to stand when we take them. Before digital, we chose the film (for speed, colour, grain, character), the process chemicals (for similar reasons), the paper to print it on, the size to print it, and all that before any actual editing (dodging and burning, splicing etc). We even adjusted time on the enlarger to make the print lighter or darker, more or less saturated (if colour), and took similar steps to change the contrast. This was all just normal developing. And if we didn't do it in our own darkrooms, we paid someone else to make those choices for us, while still having decided the type of film to use, and usually indicating to the printer what kind of paper we wanted it printed on.
Photography is not truth - it is merely a point of view. One can show a photograph to someone who was also there, and suddenly that person will gain additional perspective. They will add new knowledge to their own experience, and this can completely change their understanding of what they themselves witnessed.
Why do we present things a certain way in a photograph? Ignoring the obvious manipulation motive (advertising and the like), we do it so someone can share our experience of a moment. A photograph is just a moment. A video is a sequence of moments, but still selective - it is no more truth than photography is truth. And our experience of a moment is not limited to what we saw (even if we were looking through the camera for the entire experience of it) - it includes what we heard, what we smelled, and what we felt (sensory and emotive). Editing is the second half of the process that allows us to better define our experience of that moment. And yes - many of those moments are created simply for the purpose of taking the photograph!
I don't take issue with anyone wanting to focus solely on the in-camera experience. One could spend their entire life doing just that and never master it. IMO it does cripple the learning, however. If one does not understand post-production editing, one cannot create a complete path to the final image. If one is shooting digital, and SOOC, one is letting the camera make decisions on your behalf. The camera adjusts the saturation, the sharpening, and unless you set everything manually, a whole lot more besides. Auto white balance? Auto focus? Auto shutterspeed and/or aperture? And don't get me started on the use of "picture style" settings - yes, you can select them, but you are simply selecting a post-production preset that someone else created from a set of sliders, that anyone with Photoshop would just do more accurately on an actual computer. There is nothing wrong with doing any of that, so long as you're not pretending you're somehow better or "more honest" for doing it. There is much to be learned by SOOC photography, and there is certainly plenty of terrible editing due to the easy availability of what was once a darkroom-only domain, but the sooner people realise that the whole process is editing of moments, the less trouble we will all have.
I hope that's not too preachy :D
And while you can't polish a turd, you can roll it in glitter. ;)
@jinximages haha, I knew you would put it better than I did. ;) But yes, a digital camera itself interprets the light coming into the lens – hence my comment in the original piece about people who get on their high horses about 'SOOC' succeeding only in proving that they don't understand cameras (which was only half tongue-in-cheek).
Anyway, I'm really glad you enjoyed reading it! Thank you!
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I play on Instagram a bit now and then, but only as another vehicle for photography... Not as a way to document my day... I play on Flickr when I think about it, and otherwise, apart from 365, I stay away from social media completely...
I agree with what you wrote... Photography for me is a creative endeavour and an escape... Not a journalistic effort to display the truth, or at any rate A truth, given that for the most part, observed truth is subjective... If the standard you are holding yourself to when participating in social media is a pure objective unvarnished truth, well - more power to you and good luck with that! It is not something I think I could ever achieve...
Advertising does it all the time and most of us accept that what we see on/in an ad is not truly representative. Food never looks the same, people are airbrushed and things are photographed to make them look bigger - why I always have my tape measure and look for dimensions when buying things on line - it is amazing how often things are in fact tiny when the photo makes them look huge. Advertising banks on those who are gullible and believe what they see without question. The news is the same - just because it is in the news doesn't make it true.
There are some who do lay it all out there on social media and then the majority who edit, exaggerate add flourish. Either way there is criticism - you are either a liar or an attention seeker.
We have a choice about what we read, look at and participate in and a choice about how we accept and react to it.
Real life isn't always pleasant, appealing or pretty - there is nothing wrong with adding a bit of flourish!
I have 2 Instagram accounts, one of which I cannot longer loggin to because Facebook is not willing to help me out, what's new. The other one is quite new and started because my sons wanted an account. So now I have 2 followers :-) It's actually a copy of my photo's on 365, a diary without quotes. I do not use any social media besides instagram and this site, probably for all the reasons mentioned...
One footnote tho, I have to say that I have great admiration and respect for SOOC. To me, it is equally skillful to take the pre-time, rather than post-time to create absolutely stunning images.
i am not a sooc kinda gal, but i do definitely agree that one should put as much effort as possible in getting it "right" in camera... :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUO2FfHfCuk
@lbluejaye8 thank you! That sounds really fascinating – please do post and let me know what your students think of the whole thing!
@byrdlip, @northy, @moreyoulessme the SOOC thing wasn't meant to be the main focus of the article, by the way… ;) But it is an interesting topic in its own right!
Anyone who's had 'SOOC' discussions on here with me before, will perhaps remember that I always liken photography to the process of recording audio – because, of course, music is my field, and it is natural for me to think of things in this way.
Yes, you try to capture the best signal you possibly can at the time, rather than feeling relaxed about shoddy recording methods thinking 'oh, never mind, I can always fix it in post-' (as my old music technology tutor at college used to say, 'you can't polish a turd'!), but that doesn't then negate the need to polish what you do have. You can't make bad audio (or a bad photo) good at the editing stage – but you can make good audio, or a good photo, better. And why wouldn't you?
All of which ignores the digital aspect – that data conversion, either in a camera import, or an audio interface and DAW setup, necessarily 'interprets' the raw signals from the camera sensor or from the microphones, which is in itself a form of 'processing'. Just because you don't stick the JPEG into Photoshop once you've imported it from your camera, doesn't mean that image is 'unprocessed'.
(At this point, I should probably tag in @jinximages – who knows much more about this topic, and expresses it far better than I do…)
@mastermek of course people should do as they please! I am a big believer in that. But isn't one of the less savoury advances in social media recently how much easier it has become to hector and berate people whose choices you feel are 'wrong'? (See: 'troll' behaviour, etc.) This can lead to people second guessing their own choices online, because there is so much pressure to 'do' social media in a certain, 'accepted' way – it is a much more highly concentrated version of regular 'social pressure' to 'conform', etc.
The SOOC debate is one that will never go away, because it is fuelled by people with just enough knowledge to be dangerous. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, they say. Most of the SOOC proponents declare that editing is cheating, and is completely unnecessary. Of course, they have no clue that editing was a standard part of the photographic process with film.
As you quoted, “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.” – Ansel Adams. I've had that quote on my profile here since I started (the first time around a few years ago), and it really does sum up my philosophy on the topic. We create pictures. We create them by choice of shutterspeed, aperture, ISO, framing, field of view (lens focal length), light source position (whether already existing or added by us), and choosing where to stand when we take them. Before digital, we chose the film (for speed, colour, grain, character), the process chemicals (for similar reasons), the paper to print it on, the size to print it, and all that before any actual editing (dodging and burning, splicing etc). We even adjusted time on the enlarger to make the print lighter or darker, more or less saturated (if colour), and took similar steps to change the contrast. This was all just normal developing. And if we didn't do it in our own darkrooms, we paid someone else to make those choices for us, while still having decided the type of film to use, and usually indicating to the printer what kind of paper we wanted it printed on.
Photography is not truth - it is merely a point of view. One can show a photograph to someone who was also there, and suddenly that person will gain additional perspective. They will add new knowledge to their own experience, and this can completely change their understanding of what they themselves witnessed.
Why do we present things a certain way in a photograph? Ignoring the obvious manipulation motive (advertising and the like), we do it so someone can share our experience of a moment. A photograph is just a moment. A video is a sequence of moments, but still selective - it is no more truth than photography is truth. And our experience of a moment is not limited to what we saw (even if we were looking through the camera for the entire experience of it) - it includes what we heard, what we smelled, and what we felt (sensory and emotive). Editing is the second half of the process that allows us to better define our experience of that moment. And yes - many of those moments are created simply for the purpose of taking the photograph!
I don't take issue with anyone wanting to focus solely on the in-camera experience. One could spend their entire life doing just that and never master it. IMO it does cripple the learning, however. If one does not understand post-production editing, one cannot create a complete path to the final image. If one is shooting digital, and SOOC, one is letting the camera make decisions on your behalf. The camera adjusts the saturation, the sharpening, and unless you set everything manually, a whole lot more besides. Auto white balance? Auto focus? Auto shutterspeed and/or aperture? And don't get me started on the use of "picture style" settings - yes, you can select them, but you are simply selecting a post-production preset that someone else created from a set of sliders, that anyone with Photoshop would just do more accurately on an actual computer. There is nothing wrong with doing any of that, so long as you're not pretending you're somehow better or "more honest" for doing it. There is much to be learned by SOOC photography, and there is certainly plenty of terrible editing due to the easy availability of what was once a darkroom-only domain, but the sooner people realise that the whole process is editing of moments, the less trouble we will all have.
I hope that's not too preachy :D
And while you can't polish a turd, you can roll it in glitter. ;)
Anyway, I'm really glad you enjoyed reading it! Thank you!