Sometimes photos can be a great stimulus of a memory... but memories as you say, are sensory experiences. For example the algo has recently served me old cartoons and commercials from when I was very young. Some I had completely forgotten about until I saw them, but what surprised me was that often it wasn't the visual but actually the songs that got me! One commercial I knew every single word and inflection that I hadn't thought about in maybe 38 years! It is crazy how these things are still somewhere in the deep recesses of our brains, awaiting a new neural connection to be conjured. Sure, pics are the easiest way to document things, but I have been thinking a LOT about sound lately. Why aren't we recording messages, sounds, thoughts? And I wish we could capture smells!
This totally. I've made my entire design career working visually, but for me, smell and sound is the most affecting trigger for memories. Why aren't we recording messages and sounds? Some of us are! I was a music major and sound engineer once so I've always been surrounded by classmates really in-tune to sound. It was an interesting switch from being an art major to a music major. But now the sounds are attached to video. I could really dig deep into memories and would love to study all of this further!
I had coffee this week with an old work friend, ironically who now works for Instagram, and during the conversation we noted how memories of the same experience differ based on who we are, where we are in life at that moment, and how we process. We wondered what either of us might remember from our time together at the end of the day, after work and distance had claimed other brain cells. We took no photos.
That night, she texted me her memory. The next morning, I texted her back mine. It was such a gift to truly imprint AND to reflect it back.
But that works because we were together.
Sometimes social photos feel like a stand in for the times I’m not together with someone and I can still be part of the daily moments that they may not to think important enough at weekly or monthly check ins. Your brownstone photos and market flowers and Nori moments all remind me of how you see outside of our shared software lens. But I am also a Gen X’er with 28,718 photos on my phone. 🤦🏻♀️
wow. 28k+ photos. I did say currently though 😂 because when I got my new phone last year I did clear out most so these 8k ones are mostly new from this year. Yikes. I like that exercise that you did with your friend. We remember different things.
I do miss seeing your life and others through imagery so I know what you mean, but I can't bring myself to scroll on IG so I guess that is some sort of sacrifice I am making. Or choosing. I've gone back to texting photos with family. Maybe small groups like that are the key since social is filled with other nonsense.
I feel this. I got off Instagram several years ago because it was taking the joy out of photography. Every time I took a photo I'd wonder if it was "good enough" for Insta and if so, how should I caption it. I would got out for walks and it was like I never got a break from writing and editing. It took a few months to shake the feeling that I should be documenting my life in an aesthetically pleasing way but I don't think about it anymore and that's a relief. That said, I appreciate your photos, I like to watch the changes seasons and moods of NYC through your cameraphone.
Hi Hannah! Yes, it's taking photos for content creation rather than for preserving memories or just for the sake of photography as art. It's a total different mindset. I definitely was able to shake most of that too when I quit IG, but I guess like most things in life, ingrained habits are a multilayered thing. I'm slowly peeling away at the onion and unlearning or doing things as I go along. Would be nice one day to get back to where we were. What a weird trip this social media journey is.
My charitable reading of the digital photography habit is that it’s a way of sacralizing the world -- saying over and over again that these things you see everyday are worth looking at, and sometimes using proactive nostalgia to pretend you’re remembering them while you’re right there so that you can enjoy how special they are even more. Taking pictures of food before you dig in is practically a non-denominational prayer. The photo that comes out of it isn’t really the point – thank goodness it’s only digital and not something that needs to be developed.
Way back in my grad school days, I remember reading a theorist (JZ Smith) who pointed out that there’s no intrinsic difference between sacred things and ordinary things, and that what makes them different is the lens people view them through. He talked about sacred places like temples as a sort focusing lens that shift people into a different mode of attention, but I couldn’t resist also taking his lens metaphor literally, and I’ve associated cameras with marking things as sacred ever since. It reminds me how relatives would always pull out the camera for “special occasions,” no matter how we looked or how low the chances were that this time the big group photo would turn out. Now specialness reaches further into day-to-day life, and I can go from “wow, there are a lot of snails out this morning” to “maybe I’ll take a picture” to taking portraits of 50+ snails very quickly. But, SNAILS!! They're so curvy and mysterious.
I don’t know, am I reading too much into it? Taking pictures of something marks it as special, but sometimes I wonder whether some other way of marking things as important would be more satisfying and meaningful.
I really appreciate your thoughtful comment. I love when someone can introduce a different way of seeing something. No, you aren't reading too much into it at all! Without being able to identify it, I think there is something to what you're saying about how taking a quick photo of a meal is akin to saying a prayer before eating. I really like that! I do think since we are able to take endless photos of a thing, as opposed to taking photos on film which is really precious and requires patience for the payback, perhaps the meaning of taking a photo has evolved. Before it was for documentation, but for now? Maybe, as you suggest, it's more of a way of marking something. Thank you for this.
Wow! I am digging this ^ perspective! Yes, I take pictures to capture something that feels ephemeral, sometimes I see something so beautiful, so sublime and I think it's like a gift to be at that very moment in time to see or experience it.
This reminds me of a video I saw of this plastic surgeon talking about how she has patients who come in to say they want to get xyz done because it looks bad in pictures. She said something that really stuck with me. When have you seen a sunset and thought, oh my god that is beautiful?! Then you take a picture and then when you look at it, is the picture ever the same or better than the real thing? NEVER! Loved reading this from you and the reminder to remember the feeling, remember the damn moment, and not what it looks like in a photo. It's just not as good!
On the flip side, I hate pulling out my phone to take pics because I'm trying so hard to not have it ut all the time but I also feel like I would like a few more pics of me and my family. Not that I want to hold another thing in my purse but I wonder how I'd do with a small canon, a camera not tied to my phone?
I'll tell you how that would be. I prefer taking photos with a camera so I most always have a camera with me. Except sometimes I want to take videos, and when I was vlogging, well, I had a separate camera for that too. SO....imagine you are me with two cameras AND a phone that i still use for video and photos and whipping out all three at the same time. So yeah...
Were I not chained to the fruit of Eden, I would get a Pixel phone. A friend who has it has taken astonishingly good photos. Apart from my dogs, I do nature photography and a lot of the moon. I need a good zoom and Apple isn’t there yet.
I still take all the photos that I post here or Threads on a camera, so I’m still carrying around both everywhere. I find the Pixel phone, as well as the iPhone so sharp. It’s amazing quality for documentation, though.
That is such a...reasonable number of photos....I have 79,245 photos on my phone. (LOL).
Also, hope you are ok from your fall. This happened to me in midtown on the 1st day of a new job a few months before the pandemic and turned into a multi-year back injury because I didn't properly rest it. I felt like I was embarrassed but also think the sharing can be a bit of the humility of it -- like, validate me, but also look at the very fallible version of me.
I love how people are commenting that they have waaaay more photos on their phones than me. BUT! I did say, currently. I started fresh when I got my phone last year so the 8k is from one year.
Yeah, I'm ok now! I was concerned because I have bad disc issues and was hoping I did not damage anything further. Last year when I fell standing on a chair, my ribs crashed down on the chair on the way to the floor and yeah. That was not fun. I was pretty much bedridden for weeks and could hardly move.
Also, a multi-year injury sounds so serious. I hope you are ok now too. Man, the falling...
I have been thinking about this a lot since, um, 2018, when I finally learned how to use a proper DSLR camera and noticed how it changed my approach to walking or hiking. That led to me being a lot more deliberate about deciding "am I going for this hike to be in nature (or walk to explore the city), or to photograph it?" That started spilling over into being more conscious about noticing how using my phone to photograph stuff was actually changing the experience of walking/eating/visiting a museum/whatever. I still take photos for documentary purposes (and, ngl, for my newsletter), but it has become much more of a conscious choice, one made with the knowledge of what I am giving up by doing it.
When I was blogging in the early years of blogging, I definitely started thinking that way. This was before the term "content creator" was ever used. I never monetized the blog but I did have some big traffic years at some point. I know that we were out doing things "for the content," however, it really made us get out of our apartment when the kids were little and explore so much of the city and do things every weekend. That can't be all that bad! But now that everyone is pretty much a content creator lol, I'm trying to curb this mentality and do things because I actually enjoy doing it, not for the content and how I'll be posting about it later. This is what quitting these platforms one by one was supposed to achieve. I think it is, but didn't realize how ingrained the behavior is by now.
I also think your point about Gen-X being bigger social media posters than other generations is interesting, and I wonder if it is because the sort of golden age of social media in the early 2010s coincided with when a lot of us were parenting relatively small children, and it was a way for us to have wider connections with other adults than our home lives allowed.
I do think it has something to do with it, yeah. Twitter (and now Threads, I guess) was my water cooler substitute because I didn't have coworkers to talked to every day as a small biz owner and freelancer. I'm not sure how true it is that Gen X posts more - it's just something I see in my kids and maybe their friends, so it's a small sample size. But what they do post is definitely more real, unfiltered, and less curated images of their life, which is so opposite of what we were doing during the glory years of IG, I think.
oh, yeah, same with my kids. My high point of social media engagement was roughly 2014-16 or so, when a group of people who went to the same college that I did started a FB group for "everyday class notes" (e.g., "Jonathan Kissam, Home Economics '95, managed to get his kids to eat vegetables today"), which quickly turned into this really vibrant online community. It was open to anyone who had attended our college and graduated or left (e.g., current students were not allowed), but it was dominated by people who were at the time roughly between 35 and 45 - GenXers - who tended to have small-to-medium children.
This topic is always on my mind. I like sharing photos of things I see and parts of my life, mostly the art part but other things, as well, in small doses. What's funny is that I posted, then later deleted, a Note about my breakfast this morning and how I had to remember the order of putting ingredients together because I hadn't made this particular meal in months since it's a hot cereal and I don't eat hot cereals (rolled oats, mainly) during the spring/summer.
I was reticent about sharing it when I did and by the time mid-afternoon hit, I was like, "There is absolutely no need for this to be out in the world", lol. When I deleted it, three people had liked it and that actually made me pause for a moment-wait, this resonated with three people already, how many more...? I stopped myself in my tracks and hit delete SO fast.
Most of the photos I take are intended for: documentation (of art, life events, travel), for sharing on socials and for my newsletter and blog and for possible use as art. I tend to take shots with intention behind them. I try to get the angle and framing down and take one or two shots, that's it.
The sensory part of photographs is certainly missing. Every now and then, I've looked at a photo or two of places I've traveled to and have forgotten how it felt to be in that place, at least at first. It can take a moment or two, but the general feeling comes back. The smells can be the hardest to recall, at times. I guess it all depends on how deep the memory is and what associations we have with a particular experience.
I have a real compulsion to take photos of artwork and try hard to not do that because I really want to experience the work as directly as I can, and really be in the moment with it. I always remind myself that there are way better photos of the work usually on the venue's or artist's website than what I'll shoot with my phone camera.
I remember what it was like to shoot on film, shake that cannister, and develop my own photos. I did it for years in high school and college. Photography was magic, but it was also expensive so you really had to judiciously think about each shot. Obviously, this thought is nothing new, but I've been thinking about that more. Even with my own two children, the parallels when digital cameras and phones came out can be seen in what photos and videos we have of each child. The older one has videos on a Sony video camera that I still have yet, and maybe never will, transfer from tape. We have so many more accessible videos and photos of our younger one who was born 2.5 years later. It's so interesting to me, the progression of photography in that time.
I love reading about your intention behind the photos. I think, like in another comment thread, I was snapping away obsessively because I am afraid of ending up the same fate as my dad and his alzheimers. It really did start changing things. This is why I started writing regularly again. This is why I document obsessively. But I want to get back to being more intentional than just snapping a photo of my food just because....I don't know why?
Shooting art is a whole other thing. I haven't really had the need to photograph anything I make, which is rare anyway, but I've had to shoot my kids' stuff for high school and college admissions. Brought me right back to when I had to shoot slides when I was doing that too.
I never got around to learning to develop film. All the cameras I had when I was younger were more along the inexpensive kind that used film, but I just took that to the drug store or camera shop to be sent away to be developed.
I completely get why you'd take photos in the way that you've done in reaction to your fears around alzheimers. Just like I get it when people want to just preserve whatever moments they can. I have thousands of photos on my camera roll (not posting a number, but it's large) and I have plenty that could be deleted and I do cull some periodically. Sometimes it's fun coming across a completely innocuous image that will trigger a memory, like if I take an accidental blurry, weird angle shot just as I was putting the phone down or something.
The photos as art part was about having an intentional subject or series than photographing artwork. For me, that's my ongoing Daily Observations series, where I photograph lots of things in the streets and environments that I find interesting and most people might over-look. You can see some of them here: https://timmcfarlane.com/work/photography-dailyobservations
Ah, got it got it. Photography was so creatively fulfilling for me for such a long time, that I didn't have any urge to do any other kind of art. Which is partly why I didn't feel compelled to draw for a long time. That might have shifted over the past year, but looks like I have other blocks to overcome.
"Do you have your phone?" is the question my partner asks when she doesn't have hers and we see something special. No, I forgot to bring mine. "You should always have it with you," she complains. I reply: Sometimes things are just meant to be seen and enjoyed, not photographed.
It's true. We lived like that for so long and I have to remind myself that I still have the memories–for now! I think my compulsion also might have something to do with the fact that my dad suffered from Alzheimers and I am deathly afraid of the same fate, so I document everything. But I need to swing back more towards the middle from the extreme. It just surprises me how hard it has been.
Nearly 13k on mine... I've pared myself down to one social, but have multiple accounts that I run. But one is a professional one, another private personal, one for school (authed), and one for my daughter's art (she sells, but remains relatively anon). I have an account on FB, Threads, and X/Twitter only because sometimes I am sent something to look at, or to see what you're posting there, haha. I post pics as a form of communicating, but also as an electronic photo album (remember those yellowing sticky dots on the pages?) because I no longer print anything out and making photo books takes too long and costs too much. But yes, am I taking more pics than I would if I had only 32 shots on a roll of film? Absolutely. I enjoy seeing other people's pictures, it gives me a perspective of another place, and yours are especially beautifully composed. Thanks for sharing!
I do miss seeing other people's too, actually. But I guess that was the tradeoff I made when I left IG. I do get that from Threads, but I imagine in time it will have more sponsored nonsense and other stuff I'm not interested in. I have been texting photos more with my family! Would be funny if we went back to texting.
Also, hope you're recovering well from the fall. Last summer I went hiking and tweaked my knee from slipping on some summer snow. I didn't know just slipping would wrench a ligament so much, and now that I'm older, the recovery took longer than I thought. Hope yours is smooth and speedy!
I too hop on the bandwagon back then when insta just started (remember it used to feel indie and nostalgic??) and shared quite impulsively about my life and things. But it tapered off as I became busy living in the moment and in real life. Some of my friends never even started sharing, while some continued and expanded and did reels and such. We are the Xennials, so I don't think it's just about the generation, but also the person?
That said, I kick myself from time to time for not capturing more of everyday moments and of my lightning-speed growing children! Watching some random baby video will transport me back and gave me the feeling of those early dazed motherhood days.
I totally agree, we may not remember much, but we will always remember how we feel. Think about childhood for example and you'll see some snippets of random images but mostly you will remember how you feel at different stages in life or places.
Like most things in life, I’m trying to find the middle ground. My youngest is always snapping photos of us because she too wants to remember us and this time. I know I’ll appreciate those photos later.
I’m totally fascinated by people who don’t have any social media presence. It’s such a big part of my life, for better or worse, that I can’t imagine!
As we are fascinated with people who has a lot of social media presence :) we do enjoy consuming, though! But that said, I did quit insta early this year and spent the rest of my redeemed time on Substack :)
I am not so sure that consuming without posting is superior. Taking a photo is still an act of creation and meaning still exists, it just requires more of you to connect the dots. Perhaps rather than cold turkey, use what bothers you about it all to refine it so it works for you. Write a blurb about the feelings that inspired the photo or be more intentional about what you select. I like seeing the minutes of my long- distance friends’ lives as it is those moments that make up our lives. I am gen x, and I haven’t even tried to keep up with the tik toks so can’t speak about that. 🤣
Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s superior, but it’s certainly a different way to use a social media platform, as a consumer and not a creator. Like I mentioned in some threads here, I’d like to find a middle ground. I don’t always need the same picture from many multiple angles! Maybe I start there and challenge myself to a single shot.
It’s so funny you mention this. I’ve stopped taking as many photos over the years and I now find I regret it! I look at the pictures of my garden over the years and it’s helpful to see instead of just remember the days when it was so stunning or the way the trees have grown over to block the sun (that’s why those flowers stopped blooming!!)
And I love seeing your photos. I think we loved Instagram because it is lovely to see what people you love love. I hope you’ll keep snapping and sharing, server farms be damned.
I have been thinking a lot about cultivating core memories as we get older. Completely agree we're the generation that might have the hardest time regulating our digital selves, and I've also struggled with oversharing things. But I also compulsively share (things like a record I'm listening to) for a sense that someone, somewhere might chime in, want to discuss, or acknowledge. Feels like our compulsion really comes from a place of being seen, or at least that's my excuse. But yes, my camera roll looks like yours (my kids, the food they are eating, our orchids over and over, etc). Not sure I'll get kick the habit but I also don't really know what the endgame is for all of this data.
I love this. And as addictive and toxic as socials can be, I really appreciate how connective they can also be.
Also I’m with the kids- that woman is RUDE. I hope you are ok ♥️.
Yes, I'm ok now! And challenging myself not to take a photo of everything. I seriously can't manage these photos on my phone
😅
Sometimes photos can be a great stimulus of a memory... but memories as you say, are sensory experiences. For example the algo has recently served me old cartoons and commercials from when I was very young. Some I had completely forgotten about until I saw them, but what surprised me was that often it wasn't the visual but actually the songs that got me! One commercial I knew every single word and inflection that I hadn't thought about in maybe 38 years! It is crazy how these things are still somewhere in the deep recesses of our brains, awaiting a new neural connection to be conjured. Sure, pics are the easiest way to document things, but I have been thinking a LOT about sound lately. Why aren't we recording messages, sounds, thoughts? And I wish we could capture smells!
This totally. I've made my entire design career working visually, but for me, smell and sound is the most affecting trigger for memories. Why aren't we recording messages and sounds? Some of us are! I was a music major and sound engineer once so I've always been surrounded by classmates really in-tune to sound. It was an interesting switch from being an art major to a music major. But now the sounds are attached to video. I could really dig deep into memories and would love to study all of this further!
I had coffee this week with an old work friend, ironically who now works for Instagram, and during the conversation we noted how memories of the same experience differ based on who we are, where we are in life at that moment, and how we process. We wondered what either of us might remember from our time together at the end of the day, after work and distance had claimed other brain cells. We took no photos.
That night, she texted me her memory. The next morning, I texted her back mine. It was such a gift to truly imprint AND to reflect it back.
But that works because we were together.
Sometimes social photos feel like a stand in for the times I’m not together with someone and I can still be part of the daily moments that they may not to think important enough at weekly or monthly check ins. Your brownstone photos and market flowers and Nori moments all remind me of how you see outside of our shared software lens. But I am also a Gen X’er with 28,718 photos on my phone. 🤦🏻♀️
wow. 28k+ photos. I did say currently though 😂 because when I got my new phone last year I did clear out most so these 8k ones are mostly new from this year. Yikes. I like that exercise that you did with your friend. We remember different things.
I do miss seeing your life and others through imagery so I know what you mean, but I can't bring myself to scroll on IG so I guess that is some sort of sacrifice I am making. Or choosing. I've gone back to texting photos with family. Maybe small groups like that are the key since social is filled with other nonsense.
I feel this. I got off Instagram several years ago because it was taking the joy out of photography. Every time I took a photo I'd wonder if it was "good enough" for Insta and if so, how should I caption it. I would got out for walks and it was like I never got a break from writing and editing. It took a few months to shake the feeling that I should be documenting my life in an aesthetically pleasing way but I don't think about it anymore and that's a relief. That said, I appreciate your photos, I like to watch the changes seasons and moods of NYC through your cameraphone.
Hi Hannah! Yes, it's taking photos for content creation rather than for preserving memories or just for the sake of photography as art. It's a total different mindset. I definitely was able to shake most of that too when I quit IG, but I guess like most things in life, ingrained habits are a multilayered thing. I'm slowly peeling away at the onion and unlearning or doing things as I go along. Would be nice one day to get back to where we were. What a weird trip this social media journey is.
My charitable reading of the digital photography habit is that it’s a way of sacralizing the world -- saying over and over again that these things you see everyday are worth looking at, and sometimes using proactive nostalgia to pretend you’re remembering them while you’re right there so that you can enjoy how special they are even more. Taking pictures of food before you dig in is practically a non-denominational prayer. The photo that comes out of it isn’t really the point – thank goodness it’s only digital and not something that needs to be developed.
Way back in my grad school days, I remember reading a theorist (JZ Smith) who pointed out that there’s no intrinsic difference between sacred things and ordinary things, and that what makes them different is the lens people view them through. He talked about sacred places like temples as a sort focusing lens that shift people into a different mode of attention, but I couldn’t resist also taking his lens metaphor literally, and I’ve associated cameras with marking things as sacred ever since. It reminds me how relatives would always pull out the camera for “special occasions,” no matter how we looked or how low the chances were that this time the big group photo would turn out. Now specialness reaches further into day-to-day life, and I can go from “wow, there are a lot of snails out this morning” to “maybe I’ll take a picture” to taking portraits of 50+ snails very quickly. But, SNAILS!! They're so curvy and mysterious.
I don’t know, am I reading too much into it? Taking pictures of something marks it as special, but sometimes I wonder whether some other way of marking things as important would be more satisfying and meaningful.
I really appreciate your thoughtful comment. I love when someone can introduce a different way of seeing something. No, you aren't reading too much into it at all! Without being able to identify it, I think there is something to what you're saying about how taking a quick photo of a meal is akin to saying a prayer before eating. I really like that! I do think since we are able to take endless photos of a thing, as opposed to taking photos on film which is really precious and requires patience for the payback, perhaps the meaning of taking a photo has evolved. Before it was for documentation, but for now? Maybe, as you suggest, it's more of a way of marking something. Thank you for this.
Wow! I am digging this ^ perspective! Yes, I take pictures to capture something that feels ephemeral, sometimes I see something so beautiful, so sublime and I think it's like a gift to be at that very moment in time to see or experience it.
This reminds me of a video I saw of this plastic surgeon talking about how she has patients who come in to say they want to get xyz done because it looks bad in pictures. She said something that really stuck with me. When have you seen a sunset and thought, oh my god that is beautiful?! Then you take a picture and then when you look at it, is the picture ever the same or better than the real thing? NEVER! Loved reading this from you and the reminder to remember the feeling, remember the damn moment, and not what it looks like in a photo. It's just not as good!
On the flip side, I hate pulling out my phone to take pics because I'm trying so hard to not have it ut all the time but I also feel like I would like a few more pics of me and my family. Not that I want to hold another thing in my purse but I wonder how I'd do with a small canon, a camera not tied to my phone?
I'll tell you how that would be. I prefer taking photos with a camera so I most always have a camera with me. Except sometimes I want to take videos, and when I was vlogging, well, I had a separate camera for that too. SO....imagine you are me with two cameras AND a phone that i still use for video and photos and whipping out all three at the same time. So yeah...
Were I not chained to the fruit of Eden, I would get a Pixel phone. A friend who has it has taken astonishingly good photos. Apart from my dogs, I do nature photography and a lot of the moon. I need a good zoom and Apple isn’t there yet.
I still take all the photos that I post here or Threads on a camera, so I’m still carrying around both everywhere. I find the Pixel phone, as well as the iPhone so sharp. It’s amazing quality for documentation, though.
That is such a...reasonable number of photos....I have 79,245 photos on my phone. (LOL).
Also, hope you are ok from your fall. This happened to me in midtown on the 1st day of a new job a few months before the pandemic and turned into a multi-year back injury because I didn't properly rest it. I felt like I was embarrassed but also think the sharing can be a bit of the humility of it -- like, validate me, but also look at the very fallible version of me.
I love how people are commenting that they have waaaay more photos on their phones than me. BUT! I did say, currently. I started fresh when I got my phone last year so the 8k is from one year.
Yeah, I'm ok now! I was concerned because I have bad disc issues and was hoping I did not damage anything further. Last year when I fell standing on a chair, my ribs crashed down on the chair on the way to the floor and yeah. That was not fun. I was pretty much bedridden for weeks and could hardly move.
Also, a multi-year injury sounds so serious. I hope you are ok now too. Man, the falling...
I have been thinking about this a lot since, um, 2018, when I finally learned how to use a proper DSLR camera and noticed how it changed my approach to walking or hiking. That led to me being a lot more deliberate about deciding "am I going for this hike to be in nature (or walk to explore the city), or to photograph it?" That started spilling over into being more conscious about noticing how using my phone to photograph stuff was actually changing the experience of walking/eating/visiting a museum/whatever. I still take photos for documentary purposes (and, ngl, for my newsletter), but it has become much more of a conscious choice, one made with the knowledge of what I am giving up by doing it.
When I was blogging in the early years of blogging, I definitely started thinking that way. This was before the term "content creator" was ever used. I never monetized the blog but I did have some big traffic years at some point. I know that we were out doing things "for the content," however, it really made us get out of our apartment when the kids were little and explore so much of the city and do things every weekend. That can't be all that bad! But now that everyone is pretty much a content creator lol, I'm trying to curb this mentality and do things because I actually enjoy doing it, not for the content and how I'll be posting about it later. This is what quitting these platforms one by one was supposed to achieve. I think it is, but didn't realize how ingrained the behavior is by now.
I also think your point about Gen-X being bigger social media posters than other generations is interesting, and I wonder if it is because the sort of golden age of social media in the early 2010s coincided with when a lot of us were parenting relatively small children, and it was a way for us to have wider connections with other adults than our home lives allowed.
I do think it has something to do with it, yeah. Twitter (and now Threads, I guess) was my water cooler substitute because I didn't have coworkers to talked to every day as a small biz owner and freelancer. I'm not sure how true it is that Gen X posts more - it's just something I see in my kids and maybe their friends, so it's a small sample size. But what they do post is definitely more real, unfiltered, and less curated images of their life, which is so opposite of what we were doing during the glory years of IG, I think.
oh, yeah, same with my kids. My high point of social media engagement was roughly 2014-16 or so, when a group of people who went to the same college that I did started a FB group for "everyday class notes" (e.g., "Jonathan Kissam, Home Economics '95, managed to get his kids to eat vegetables today"), which quickly turned into this really vibrant online community. It was open to anyone who had attended our college and graduated or left (e.g., current students were not allowed), but it was dominated by people who were at the time roughly between 35 and 45 - GenXers - who tended to have small-to-medium children.
"small-to-medium children" 😂
This topic is always on my mind. I like sharing photos of things I see and parts of my life, mostly the art part but other things, as well, in small doses. What's funny is that I posted, then later deleted, a Note about my breakfast this morning and how I had to remember the order of putting ingredients together because I hadn't made this particular meal in months since it's a hot cereal and I don't eat hot cereals (rolled oats, mainly) during the spring/summer.
I was reticent about sharing it when I did and by the time mid-afternoon hit, I was like, "There is absolutely no need for this to be out in the world", lol. When I deleted it, three people had liked it and that actually made me pause for a moment-wait, this resonated with three people already, how many more...? I stopped myself in my tracks and hit delete SO fast.
Most of the photos I take are intended for: documentation (of art, life events, travel), for sharing on socials and for my newsletter and blog and for possible use as art. I tend to take shots with intention behind them. I try to get the angle and framing down and take one or two shots, that's it.
The sensory part of photographs is certainly missing. Every now and then, I've looked at a photo or two of places I've traveled to and have forgotten how it felt to be in that place, at least at first. It can take a moment or two, but the general feeling comes back. The smells can be the hardest to recall, at times. I guess it all depends on how deep the memory is and what associations we have with a particular experience.
I have a real compulsion to take photos of artwork and try hard to not do that because I really want to experience the work as directly as I can, and really be in the moment with it. I always remind myself that there are way better photos of the work usually on the venue's or artist's website than what I'll shoot with my phone camera.
I remember what it was like to shoot on film, shake that cannister, and develop my own photos. I did it for years in high school and college. Photography was magic, but it was also expensive so you really had to judiciously think about each shot. Obviously, this thought is nothing new, but I've been thinking about that more. Even with my own two children, the parallels when digital cameras and phones came out can be seen in what photos and videos we have of each child. The older one has videos on a Sony video camera that I still have yet, and maybe never will, transfer from tape. We have so many more accessible videos and photos of our younger one who was born 2.5 years later. It's so interesting to me, the progression of photography in that time.
I love reading about your intention behind the photos. I think, like in another comment thread, I was snapping away obsessively because I am afraid of ending up the same fate as my dad and his alzheimers. It really did start changing things. This is why I started writing regularly again. This is why I document obsessively. But I want to get back to being more intentional than just snapping a photo of my food just because....I don't know why?
Shooting art is a whole other thing. I haven't really had the need to photograph anything I make, which is rare anyway, but I've had to shoot my kids' stuff for high school and college admissions. Brought me right back to when I had to shoot slides when I was doing that too.
I never got around to learning to develop film. All the cameras I had when I was younger were more along the inexpensive kind that used film, but I just took that to the drug store or camera shop to be sent away to be developed.
I completely get why you'd take photos in the way that you've done in reaction to your fears around alzheimers. Just like I get it when people want to just preserve whatever moments they can. I have thousands of photos on my camera roll (not posting a number, but it's large) and I have plenty that could be deleted and I do cull some periodically. Sometimes it's fun coming across a completely innocuous image that will trigger a memory, like if I take an accidental blurry, weird angle shot just as I was putting the phone down or something.
The photos as art part was about having an intentional subject or series than photographing artwork. For me, that's my ongoing Daily Observations series, where I photograph lots of things in the streets and environments that I find interesting and most people might over-look. You can see some of them here: https://timmcfarlane.com/work/photography-dailyobservations
Ah, got it got it. Photography was so creatively fulfilling for me for such a long time, that I didn't have any urge to do any other kind of art. Which is partly why I didn't feel compelled to draw for a long time. That might have shifted over the past year, but looks like I have other blocks to overcome.
"Do you have your phone?" is the question my partner asks when she doesn't have hers and we see something special. No, I forgot to bring mine. "You should always have it with you," she complains. I reply: Sometimes things are just meant to be seen and enjoyed, not photographed.
It's true. We lived like that for so long and I have to remind myself that I still have the memories–for now! I think my compulsion also might have something to do with the fact that my dad suffered from Alzheimers and I am deathly afraid of the same fate, so I document everything. But I need to swing back more towards the middle from the extreme. It just surprises me how hard it has been.
Nearly 13k on mine... I've pared myself down to one social, but have multiple accounts that I run. But one is a professional one, another private personal, one for school (authed), and one for my daughter's art (she sells, but remains relatively anon). I have an account on FB, Threads, and X/Twitter only because sometimes I am sent something to look at, or to see what you're posting there, haha. I post pics as a form of communicating, but also as an electronic photo album (remember those yellowing sticky dots on the pages?) because I no longer print anything out and making photo books takes too long and costs too much. But yes, am I taking more pics than I would if I had only 32 shots on a roll of film? Absolutely. I enjoy seeing other people's pictures, it gives me a perspective of another place, and yours are especially beautifully composed. Thanks for sharing!
I do miss seeing other people's too, actually. But I guess that was the tradeoff I made when I left IG. I do get that from Threads, but I imagine in time it will have more sponsored nonsense and other stuff I'm not interested in. I have been texting photos more with my family! Would be funny if we went back to texting.
Also, hope you're recovering well from the fall. Last summer I went hiking and tweaked my knee from slipping on some summer snow. I didn't know just slipping would wrench a ligament so much, and now that I'm older, the recovery took longer than I thought. Hope yours is smooth and speedy!
Thank you! I am better. Thankfully it wasn't as damaging as last year's fall. We have to be careful! Recovery at this age is getting harder!
I too hop on the bandwagon back then when insta just started (remember it used to feel indie and nostalgic??) and shared quite impulsively about my life and things. But it tapered off as I became busy living in the moment and in real life. Some of my friends never even started sharing, while some continued and expanded and did reels and such. We are the Xennials, so I don't think it's just about the generation, but also the person?
That said, I kick myself from time to time for not capturing more of everyday moments and of my lightning-speed growing children! Watching some random baby video will transport me back and gave me the feeling of those early dazed motherhood days.
I totally agree, we may not remember much, but we will always remember how we feel. Think about childhood for example and you'll see some snippets of random images but mostly you will remember how you feel at different stages in life or places.
And I'm glad you're fine from the fall :)
Like most things in life, I’m trying to find the middle ground. My youngest is always snapping photos of us because she too wants to remember us and this time. I know I’ll appreciate those photos later.
I’m totally fascinated by people who don’t have any social media presence. It’s such a big part of my life, for better or worse, that I can’t imagine!
As we are fascinated with people who has a lot of social media presence :) we do enjoy consuming, though! But that said, I did quit insta early this year and spent the rest of my redeemed time on Substack :)
I am not so sure that consuming without posting is superior. Taking a photo is still an act of creation and meaning still exists, it just requires more of you to connect the dots. Perhaps rather than cold turkey, use what bothers you about it all to refine it so it works for you. Write a blurb about the feelings that inspired the photo or be more intentional about what you select. I like seeing the minutes of my long- distance friends’ lives as it is those moments that make up our lives. I am gen x, and I haven’t even tried to keep up with the tik toks so can’t speak about that. 🤣
Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s superior, but it’s certainly a different way to use a social media platform, as a consumer and not a creator. Like I mentioned in some threads here, I’d like to find a middle ground. I don’t always need the same picture from many multiple angles! Maybe I start there and challenge myself to a single shot.
It’s so funny you mention this. I’ve stopped taking as many photos over the years and I now find I regret it! I look at the pictures of my garden over the years and it’s helpful to see instead of just remember the days when it was so stunning or the way the trees have grown over to block the sun (that’s why those flowers stopped blooming!!)
And I love seeing your photos. I think we loved Instagram because it is lovely to see what people you love love. I hope you’ll keep snapping and sharing, server farms be damned.
I have been thinking a lot about cultivating core memories as we get older. Completely agree we're the generation that might have the hardest time regulating our digital selves, and I've also struggled with oversharing things. But I also compulsively share (things like a record I'm listening to) for a sense that someone, somewhere might chime in, want to discuss, or acknowledge. Feels like our compulsion really comes from a place of being seen, or at least that's my excuse. But yes, my camera roll looks like yours (my kids, the food they are eating, our orchids over and over, etc). Not sure I'll get kick the habit but I also don't really know what the endgame is for all of this data.