FIT THIRTY SEVEN
Hello, here is a bicycle related post.
I’ve made no secret lately that I’m tired of trying to fight with the Internet Overlords to share uggghhhhh, ‘content’. Am I trying to make Internet Overlords catch on as something we refer to when speaking of the control social media exerts over our ability to share our photographs, videos etc? I probably am. Anyways. I’m tired of it. I think most of us aren’t really on Instagram just to see what ads or content creators algorithms think are useful to advertisers, I know that I signed up for the platform to share photos (initially, just to share weird stuff I transported as a bike messenger) and to be able to see what my friends are up to without the rest of the bullshit that Facebook was currently cranking out.
We’re all aware that Instagram is now Facebook and it’s all a bunch of garbage of hashtags and machine learning or whatever. Not just a stream of images to keep up with. Lately the Overlord Machine has decided we need to make video (or animated or whatever) content in order to be viewed by human eyes. A lot of my frustration is that, I don’t want to make videos. I want to make still photographs.
I work in the film industry. I started in that industry to try and fund/fuel my own photography practice and I’m largely posting on the internet to try and share images, not videos. My plan with the industry has always been to work this job that lets me afford to invest in myself and my own practice. And in theory some planned time off every year to focus on personal development (time off to work! (on myself)). That personal practice has always revolved around still images. I care about stills and that’s largely why I haven’t tried to get into the camera department or try and make longer term goals in the film industry.
Anyways. It’s a weird catch 22. I’m finally able to afford to shoot film, invest in gear, make some photographs regularly that I want to share with people and ‘the best’ way to share your work has a robot deciding if you’re cool or not. It’s hard when I’ve had a struggle with wanting to be cool and trying to achieve cool my whole life (thanks childhood bullies for that..) to have an arbitrary bit of code decide how and who gets to see your work.
Oh well. On a positive note. In the investing in myself and gear category, I just ordered (as a very very early xmas present) a super telephoto zoom to creep on birds this winter break. I’m most excited to throw the lens on my Nikon F5 and shoot some black on white film of Bald Eagles being grumpy in the winter. I’m planning on darkroom time in the spring to print some mountains and with some luck, some grumpy eagles. Then if the Internet Overlords allow me to, I’ll figure out showing that work to real humans who might be interested in real prints.
Keep it real buds!