“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past…”
Sitting in my parents’ house, surrounded by my dad’s old college books and mine, I’m struck by a certain melancholy—a mix of memory, gratitude, and loss. As it happens, Margot just told me about Insta Repeat, a feed that catalogs the repetitiousness of Instagram photography. This makes me think of “vemödalen” (“the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist”)—and just searching this blog for that term shows my current unoriginality in its use:
- Endless Instagram repetition, the musical!
- Google researchers discover time lapses by data-mining millions of photos
- “Camera Restricta” prevents shooting unoriginal photos
- Membit: “Pokémon Go for your Memories”
- “I’m not like everybody else”—except, well…
Ah well—so it goes. Until next time…
[YouTube]
It’s pretty tough competing against the internet. In my social circle I am the best, most serious photographer. On the internet I am somewhere a mediocre, insufficiently committed wannabe. I got over it for the most part with the attitude that my primary audience is me, followed by my social circle. Of course there’s abundant inspiration on the internet, so it’s not as if I’m working in isolation. If I were a professional landscape/travel/portrait/wedding/product photographer, I’m sure the pains would be more acute.