Illustration by Miguel Soares – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

This post is by way of explaining some of the reasoning, however irrational, behind my February 16 bellyache.

Based on other articles I’ve come across recently, I’m not alone in contemplating these ideas — many people are questioning the effect of social media on their lives. Therefore, I may delve further into the topic.

Social media influence

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about how Instagram influenced my photographic decisions. I’ve altered my view since then; realizing that allowing my work to be affected by the fads of cyberspace has some parallel with getting a tattoo based on the latest Internet meme. Hey, it happens.

A few weeks ago, the latest flotsam to orbit the planet revolved around the verity of some terribly Photoshopped family portraits (google it). I did chuckle. It was comic relief beside the most badly-made-up actor on the world stage, who’s artificially-enhanced mug cannot be escaped other than perhaps by interstellar travel.

But I digress. Recently, I joined several Facebook photography groups. Like any gathering, these social media hangouts attract all kinds of personalities and levels of expertise.

I did the same on Google+ a few years back and my impression is the same: the repetition of imagery, much of it influenced by the latest YouTube star, leads to visual ennui.

Don’t get me wrong, there is some very good imagery to be seen along with the dross. Better yet, access to the “hive mind” of the Internet can answer technical questions in moments. Last week, members of the Facebook group FujiLove helped me with a question I had while making the 4K video test … even though I’d just temporarily had a senior moment.

Visual debris

However, the overall effect is to feel awash in a tsunami of random visual debris, much of it a homogeny of over-processed kitsch — to my eye the photographic equivalent of black velvet paintings. These “photos-gone wrong” often receive the (faint) praise “Wow! Looks like a painting!”

Done by a chimpanzee.

Like the aforementioned cartoonish family portraits, there are a million photographs made by people with no visual acuity, but access to powerful editing tools. Results vary from the sublime to the ridiculous.

My labours

If this assessment sounds peevish, so be it. I have to accept that garish, psychedelic landscapes, created by the over-application of post-processing clarity and saturation “sliders,” are more likely to garner approval on the web than are my understated images, made by decreasing such digital options. Here’s an example, created by desaturating the vivid colour available from the Nikon D800 file.

Who am I to say these “experiments” may not lead to future success — hell, as I say, if success is measured in social media “likes” and “shares,” then I have something to learn from the folks I disparage. I cringe looking at some of my early failures, and not all of my newer work works. I’m a believer in the democratization of art and have been known to rail against the rule of the ateliers that elevate the obtuse above simplicity and honesty, i.e. screw conceptualism.

I’ve since muted some of the more prolific groups and posters due more to a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of competing imagery — competing for the validation of “likes,” that is — and the feeling that my time is better spent creating my own work, which I launch sparingly into this cluttered space, for better or worse.

Are you overwhelmed by today’s visual bombardment, or do you think variety is the spice of life? Let me know with a comment below.