I've had Instagram for a few years now but never taken it seriously until a few months ago. By "serious" I mean that before then, I would mostly just post whatever I was currently capturing on my camera phone. I actually started my Instagram account by posting cell phone pics of funny or stupid vanity plates while I was pushing shopping carts at Costco. Completely different than what I do now.
Instagram is a great way for photographers to connect, which is why I've been more engaged by browsing through other peoples' work through hashtags. It's funny how there's a whole other world within those tags including trends like with anything else. Some are inspiring but there are a lot of Instagram fads that I feel photographers should be avoiding. Let me explain:
COLLAGE PHOTOS
Some people think its cool and different to post a collage of one particular photo made from multiple posts. You might think its cool but have you considered what it's doing to the people who follow you?
Looks cool right? Look what it does to your followers feed while they're scrolling around:
These collages are also only effective until your next post when it pushes your feed around like an unfinished puzzle:
PLANES PLANES PLANES
This has been really popular lately and I can't figure out why people still do it even after the whole Nikon Photo Contest Controversy. The first time someone sees it they might think it's cool and wonder how you got a perfectly placed plane in the middle of your frame; "You probably waited there for hours to get that shot timed just right!" . It became more popular than almost anything else though for a while.
It's obvious that they're all photoshopped, especially by now so there's no point in trying to fool anyone. If you're going to point your camera to the sky, everyone would rather see a tiny turtle instead, like this:
STEEL WOOL
I feel like this type of photo is for people who just discovered long exposure or light painting photography. I'll have to admit, I never did this before but I can see that it might be fun to try once. I see it all over the place though and sometimes the photos looks great but 90% of the time they just look like someone spilled spaghetti all over the floor.
For a while, if you looked up long exposure hashtags you would find more steel wool than anything else.
I'll make a post about the type of stuff I love to see on Instagram as well. What do you think? What are some of your Instagram pet peves?
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