Can you publish your photos on social media without being social yourself?

I have always been in love with computers. I’ve been using various sources of social media for ages and in late 2017 I started posting my photos regularly on various channels. In the beginning I was very active on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and tried to connect with other photographers and other independent content creators.

But it was also challenging to combine family life and work with my hobbies and interests. I’m constantly trying to learn or to do something. My phone was the ideal tool for it. It’s my mobile bookshelf, radio, music collection, newspaper, translator and connection to the world. I could fill any spare moment with something useful. And so I did.

I know, there’s only 24 hours in a day but I have been good in making the best out of it. Up until a few years ago when it became apparent that I didn’t have that 24 hour focus anymore. And so I have been retreating little by little from my phone. I replaced colourful icons with dull text, I furiously curated which app can throw which notification at me and as many, I tried apps to control how much time I spent on other apps.

Although all these things helped a little bit, the best thing I could do is to remove social media from my phone altogether. This was a hard choice because I regularly publish content on it and I’m used on checking throughout the day how well or bad a photo is received. I did that multiple times a day which didn’t really make sense. I like it when people like the photos I published after careful curation and final edits. It’s great when your creative work is appreciated. But I don’t need to keep myself updated that regularly. Maybe the current state of social media has become a net negative to people’s life.

So am I now only taking and not giving? Well, a do return my appreciation for whatever other people are doing but hardly enough. Social media is something I limited to just my laptop. This helps me to surpress the urge to take my phone when there’s a moment of silence. As an experiment, I now try to keep my phone out of reach and for some time I will not use it to listen to podcasts or music. It was necessary because without social media I just started doing other stuff on my phone. Not because there was other interesting stuff but because I was used to do something with my phone.

So I started checking the weather, checking my bank account, check if somebody posted an update on WhatsApp. Multiple times a day. Why? The experiment is still ongoing but up until now it has been positive. Even though it does make me feel like an old man in an awfully quiet house where you can only hear the clock ticking.

But back on the subject of social media. I currently just don’t have the focus to stay on top of what happens online. It didn’t really work for me back then and it surely doesn’t work now. And I think it’s OK to take pictures and throw them at the public without real online interaction. I love it when my work is being appreciated but that doesn’t mean that I have to go online to do the same in return. If my work would be in a museum, I also wouldn’t attend every exhibition of others. I just don’t have the capacity to do that.

Things change all the time and my current approach to social media will probably change over time as well. For now, just broadcasting my work on social media is good enough for me. Everybody has their own way of handling social media. This is mine for now. I don’t know what’s yours but I urge you to keep creating and sharing with others. Your creativity is -in a small way- a blessing to this world.

I’m horrified each time I see somebody working with film photography. It’s the type of interaction with the physical world I always fear. I rather handle photo’s digitally. Easy to edit, publish and store. Everything zen.

But lately I realised another downside to analogue photography. That cute retro experience is not only powered by a long sheet of film but also by various chemicals. And if you’re a productive photographer, you’ll end up with a physical archive of every photo you ever took, no matter if it was worth archiving to begin with. So your children can enjoy that out-of-focus picture you took of your nose by accident.

I would like to warn the world about this trend but I want to do that based on facts and not on assumptions even though they seem logical. I tried to put my logic to the test but a quick search on the internet seems to reveal that nobody took up the daunting task yet to compare the environmental impact of both types of photography. Everybody just sum up the various ways analogue and digital photography are bad for the environment but shy away from assessing the scope of these drawbacks.

I did see one drawback when it comes to digital cameras even though the criticism has some caveats. Manufacturing things, especially complex devices like cameras take a lot of energy. For example: during the lifetime of an iPhone, somewhere around 80% of all energy it will ever use, went into producing that thing. That’s why extending the lifetime of your phone or camera is more effective than trying to lower its energy consumption.

Another thing is that digital cameras quickly become obsolete. Although they won’t become obsolete as fast as they did in the 2000s, your camera will only be in its prime for the first few years. If you own a few cameras, there is a change you’re underusing them. A lot of earth’s resources went into manufacturing a camera that is collecting dust 99,9% of the time.

So the best advice I can give with the information that I can find is this: if you take a lot of photos, go digital. If not, analogue might be fine.

But even that can be up for discussion. It’s true that digital cameras are quickly obsolete while film cameras from decades ago still are around. But even though you do Mother Nature a favour by buying cool 1980’s camera gear in a thrift shop, I don’t think FujiFilm’s Instax cameras will last multiple decades.

As often, issues are more complex than they seem at first sight. Until we see more relevant data, my stance on analogue photography remains. Let’s appreciate retro tech but without the environmental abuse that came with it.

You can’t take pictures of people indefinitely. At some point you know it’s time to pack your bag and go.

You start to see the same faces over and over again. Or you realise that you’re walking around in circles and wonder if people start to notice that. The smaller the pond you fish in, the faster you’re out of fish. But every pond is different as I experienced during an evening of bingo.

I’ve never taken photos of a bingo event so I was actually thrilled to be at one. I hadn’t been taking photographs for a few months and this seemed like a good opportunity to get back in the saddle again. And things seemed promising: a room with 100+ people, mostly concerned about the numbers on a sheet before them and not about a photographer hunting for the perfect picture.

As always, I started preparing my cameras after I arrived at the scene. I always do that as it gives me some time to pick up the mood in the room around me and slowly transition into the role of photographer. While I was busy with preparations, some looked over their shoulders to see what I was doing. That was a hint for what was to come.

Even though the bingo was a happy occasion, it was also a quiet one. People need to hear the numbers being announced. In contrast with other activities like carnival, the clicking of my camera was very noticeable. Even during other activities like when the jury checks the bingo card of a winner, there wasn’t much sound. There was no way to hide.

So I quickly switched to telephoto lenses to take pictures of people without getting too close to them. Even though that worked, I could tell people were keeping an eye on me. Not that I was a nuisance (I think) but because I triggered their curiosity.

So I got up the stairs and took pictures from a high angle. But even then, people at some point looked up to see what I was doing. Even on a different level in the building, they were onto me.

When I tried to get more close with a 50mm equivalent lens, people started to giggle. Sometimes this works well: you make contact with your subjects, have a chat and hopefully the opportunity to take a photo while talking. In this case though, the group giggled too loud. I feared this would be a distraction for the rest of the group, so I soon made my escape to another table.

Then came my rescue: the organisation announced that this was the last bingo session before the break. I quickly made the best of the time that was left and when people started to make their way to the bar, I felt relieved and started packing.

Bingo turned out to be an adventure.

Side note: bingo is apparently still pretty much a gender thing. I only noticed halfway that only about 3 of the 100+ participants were actually male.

So I’m thinking about leaving X.

The reason is quite clear why I’m considering this: many already left and with the surreal political situation in the US at the moment, I feel I reached the limits of my patience when it comes to Elon Musk.

Let me be clear: everybody should be entitled to have their own opinion, even if you don’t share that person’s opinion, even if you’re the CEO of a large social network, even if you have opinions that I consider complete bat shit. And boy, Elon has some bat shit convictions.

So why do I think of leaving X? Because the platform itself doesn’t seem to be neutral anymore. Solid proof is hard to come by when you ignore all the anecdotal and emotionally charged evidence but after a quick, elaborate search on the web I did find some compelling research results.

And even when solid evidence is still a work in progress, there’s certainly a motive for the alleged crime: Musk spent last year almost $300 million dollars on the Trump campaign. Knowing the boundary-breaking person that he is, it’s logical he would at least consider using his leverage over this large social network for a political goal that is clearly very dear for him.

“So who cares? You’re just a hobby photographer in a small city. You need a platform to spread your photos.” Very true. For me though, I’m totally blown away by what happened during this Trump presidency. And these are only the first few weeks. We have still 4 years to go. Four years to break down all those democratic checks and balances that may seem to be a hindrance at times but in the long run prevent authoritarian rule.

It’s hard to oppose Trump and at the same time provide content to the very social network that helped to get him elected. So even though I don’t consider myself an activist, I feel have to make a stance.

My first picture was posted on Twitter, so I have some attachment to that network. But I also realise that while my presence on social networks might change over time, my photo brand “Groeten uit Oss” will remain.

Decision: to be determined…

Update: I decided to keep my account but stop posting until I feel comfortable to post again on X.

“Can you take a picture of me?” I get this request quite often. Especially at parties. One time I couldn’t make a step without being asked that question. I just packed my gear and left.

I like taking portraits of strangers so I do feel I have to do something in return. But my heart is not in it. I am looking for spontaneous photos where people are busy among themselves. When people notice you, they start to pose and the photo is then reduced to a mere obligatory snapshot with the obligatory thumbs up and forced happy faces. Sometimes it does result in an interesting portrait but most of the time it doesn’t.

Often I still publish such photos because it still creates attention on social media. I have enough followers in my municipality that there’s always somebody that recognizes a person in my pictures and then tags that person. I publish these photo’s bundled in one post so it’s clear they are less valuable to me than the photos I publish one by one.

Anyway, last week I struggled. I was at the opening of a skate park. As a street photographer I like dynamic scenes but this was more like sports photography which I don’t have much experience in, nor much interest. So although I took some OK photos I wasn’t happy with the end result. I was ready to pack my gear and leave. And then came that question: “Can you take a picture of me?”

The question came from a skater whom I took some action photos some minutes before. The youngster definitively had personality but I was in doubt. Will this just be another snapshot? But I realised it was just the second request that day so after some hesitation I agreed and unpacked the cameras again.

But this time it was more than just simple snapshot. He wanted to have a portrait with the skatepark in the background. So we walked back to that place. In the mean time, though I had some time to think about the scene that I wanted to make.

Taking the time to think what would be a good scene really made the difference. By the time I started shooting for the portrait, I already knew what kind of picture I was going for. The result was a satisfying picture and a changed perspective on that day.

“So, what have you been up to lately?” “Ugh, I’ve been so busy!” This answer is so trite yet I tend to fall in the same gap as everybody else. I need to find a better answer for this question.

So, what are my excuses? I either don’t have the time (other priorities) or I struggle to find the motivation. Let’s examine them a little bit closer.

No time

This one is the simplest of the two. Bar exceptions, we can always win time by either dropping activities or by combining them with photography. Simple, right? Yes and no.

I know the solution is quite clear: I have to make choices but it’s hard to drop something. Should I produce less podcasts? Or spend less time on career, the garden or learning a language? Life is all about priorities and yet, half-way in life I’m still learning. Easy to understand, hard to master, right?. I found some strategies that helped me taking more photos. And some that won’t. 😅

What works for me

Have a camera at hand - I always have one in my shoulder bag or backpack. Not that I encounter a lot of opportunities to grab my camera. Often my focus is with other things than photography (see “Multitasking”). But at least I have a camera at hand when I need one.

Find inspiration close to home - Or even better: in home. Sometimes I look at the garden or some place in the house and really appreciate what I see. Then I get my camera and just take the photo. I have some photos of the interior of my first house and still a pleasure to see them again. So at some point I will also like the interior pictures that I make now.

It’s OK to let go - Well, that doesn’t make me take more photographs, but better to have peace with yourself than chasing goals that only makes your life stressful. If it’s too much stress, it’s not worth it.

What does not work for me (yet)

Multitasking - Even when you’re busy, you should be able to take a picture when you see the opportunity. Take a minute or two and then continue with what you’re doing. That seems reasonable and although I tend to do that, most of the time I won’t because it would get me out of whatever I was focused on.

Often I’m out, I’m on a mission: supermarket, a meeting, commute, whatever. My mind is focused on arriving on time and most of the time I have a folding bike and a backpack. Stopping for a photo breaks that focus. It also conflicts with how I want to take pictures: travel light, no obligations and time to attentively study a scene.

What might work

Plan - Planning works for me as it prepares my mind for whatever I planned to do and can make preparations if needed. If I don’t plan, time will inevitably will be filled up with other stuff to do. This tactic only works there’s space in my agenda. When I’m too busy, I tend to trade in activities for some head space.

Motivation

Sometimes I don’t feel like going out to make pictures. These moments are more worrisome for me as I then notice that I lose interest in something that I would normally like to do.

Most of the problem is just getting out of the house. Once I’m taking pictures, everything is just fine. But quite often the lack of motivation to go out is also a sign that I’m doing too much. Doing the stuff you like in an haphazardly manner doesn’t really help in appreciating your creative outlet.

This year I skipped some events that I normally always attend like the yearly fairground. There was too much to do at home and I didn’t feel like going out. Although I don’t like the fact that I stayed home, I trust that this is just a temporary thing. Eventually I will regain sufficient head space.

Having 1500+ followers on social networks is great but should not become a boring responsibility. At some point I published a photo every day and at some point that schedule became a burden at moments that I have nothing good to publish. To maintain continuity, I switched to four times in a week. That worked better for me and it also forces me to only publish the good photos at moments I do have enough publishing material. By publishing less, the quality of the published material went up.

In the end, having no time for photos has nothing to do with photography but about life and what choices you’re willing to make. Although I really like to document the world around me, photography is not a career path for me so I prefer to stick to a sustainable pace.

Photos of amateur photographers can be fascinating. Some appear to convey a deeper meaning. But others are a flat and lifeless registration and you lose interest the moment you lay your eyes upon it.

This fascinates me. Because although I instantly recognise such lifeless photos, it’s hard to put in words why such photos don’t trigger any emotion in me. So I instead I’ll sum up some strategies that can bring that deeper meaning in photos.

Interactions

I often attend activities and festivities that attract crowds. The more people, the better. Those events are for me the best environments to take pictures of people. It’s something I really like to do. But how to make a photo that’s more than just a registration? My strategy is to just walk around. And while doing so, I observe people and situations. I especially focus on people who are busy with themselves or interacting with others. Those people are often too busy to mind a photographer. And while doing so, they’ll express who they are and what they feel at that moment. Those moments can feel special and makes you want to be part of them. That’s what I’m looking for. Always take multiple shots while taking photos of interactions as such situations change every second. Hands are moving, expressions change constantly and you need to capture the best alignment of all elements in the scene.

Taking pictures of random people can feel scary but it doesn’t have to be. The most important thing is to not act sneaky. Yes, you need to be unnoticed or at least ignored to be able to make great candid photos but hiding the fact that you’re taking pictures only makes you more suspicious. I always walk around with 1 to 3 camera’s around my neck so my intentions are clear from the start. Also, in this media-intensive world, people are used that there’s somebody taking photos of events. You don’t want to know how often I’ve been asked which media outlet I represent. Try to stay under the radar, though. Otherwise people will become hyper-aware of your presence, ruining the spontaneous moment.

Contrasts or juxtaposition

Contrast can be found in many things like colour, lightness and size. Contrasts catalyse an already interesting scene. In street photography hard shadows or colour contrasts can instantly dramatise your photos. These contrasts are mostly pleasing to the abstract loving part of our brain though; they do not necessarily add more meaning to it.

Although trickier to find, non-visual contrasts like juxtapositions between the subject and surroundings will introduce more meaning to a picture. For example: a pensive person at a crowded party or a thrown away house plant in an open field in the city. Be careful with such techniques though. You might imply something things that might not be there.

Different perspectives

Lately I started to experiment with more extreme camera perspectives. It’s a way to make sure my photos won’t be the same.

Negative space

This is an old favourite of mine. In regular photos the subject is in the middle of the photo and occupies a lot of space. It’s very functional and works well with -for example- portraits. By introducing a lot of negative space, you create a different dynamic between the subject and its environment. A photo of a building but with a lot of sky in the picture, makes the building small, both literally and figuratively. This is the kind of thing that makes a photo more interesting.

How does it feel?

While walking around, take a step back and think about the setting you’re in as a whole. What is happening here on a higher level? And what is your opinion about it? Do you get feelings of community or the opposite? This is not a fast and quick way to get interesting photos but it can help you find new angles in subjects.

Train the eye

It’s tricky for me to write all these tricks down on paper. Most of the time I don’t think about contrasts, juxtapositions or negative space when taking photos. I should do that more often. More often I take photos of scenes that interest me. More often than not, I only see a deeper meaning afterwards. Intuitively knowing what to shoot is a skill that grows over time. And talent surely helps.

There’s a cool practice to hone your sense of composition that I’ve never done myself but it really makes sense to me. Have a sheet of paper and a few shapes cut out from paper in a contrasting colour. Then start to position those shapes in all kinds of ways on the paper: aligning, grouping, negative space, whatever interesting composition you can come up with.

Review later

You know that feeling when you encounter an old, discarded photo you took and see it in a totally different light? I don’t do this often, but while reviewing old photos, you can start to appreciate photos you didn’t do before. Also this can definitely train the eye for composition. And of course, regularly looking at work of other photographers that you look up to will greatly improve your feeling for what is a good photo as well.