Andrew Melder

My first week after turning off a bunch of social media accounts. Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Reddit etc all either disabled or logged out.

The only one I didn’t turn off was Facebook. This isn’t such an issue as I don’t have a desire to use it often; only requiring access to kids’ school and activity groups, and only using it on my laptop.

Photography without social

Being an amateur photographer, I’ve been sharing photos on my personal site but also wondering why just a little. I don’t make money from photography; it is purely a hobby. But I find myself wanting to share my work more broadly, which makes it seem slightly counterintuitive to not engage in social media.

But on the flipside, I know the moods on my photography will go up or down based on the reactions (likes, comments or lack thereof) on photos posted on social media. So, is there really any value doing so?

There’s a reason I don’t have any analytics enabled on my personal sites; I don’t want to have how I feel about what I put out there influenced by the reaction.

The transformation of Instagram in recent years has helped here. It’s no longer a space for those of us like myself, who primarily take and share photos, want it to be. Yet, despite other options becoming available, if I’m thinking about sharing my photos more broadly; it’s still Instagram I gravitate towards.

I’m undecided here. Even when (if) I decide to engage in social media more; I’m unsure where photography will fit.

Microblogging as a distraction mechanism

It’s Monday. I have work I need to complete as part of a project. I’m not behind on work, but I do need to ensure I’m getting things done.

Instead, I instinctively try to open LinkedIn on my work computer; good move past me, I hibernated the account. I find myself picking up and unlocking my phone without consciously realising, only to have nothing to do. The apps are gone in addition to the logins being suspended or deleted.

I’m procrastinating, but my usual vices are no longer there. It’s true, social media just distracts us from the things in our lives right in front of us that we can do.

I found the answer, right? Wrong!

Time saved on social media needs to be made up with changes in other aspects to make the most of your time. Work chat and other channels suddenly become a substitute distraction method.

No social media doesn’t fix your lack of drive or productivity at times; it hopefully makes you notice what is going on and triggers you to make changes in what you do to avoid the traps, but the traps can creep up in other forms.

Why did I buy another gadget?

I purchased another ereader this week. Why?

The justification is I want to read more. I already have a Kindle and a eink writing tablet (Supernote A6X) that I do a bit of reading on. I’ve read more this week, filling in the time I would have previously used on social media. So why yet another device to read more?

Well, my justification now is this one is a phone form factor. As such, I can take it around more and read wherever I go instead of just at home, or places where I’ve taken the effort to bring my Supernote around.

The plan is this device will take the place of my phone in my front pocket, with the phone being relegated to my fanny pack.

Will this make books the distracting factor instead of social media? Maybe. Can’t be the worst thing to do though.

Calling out my own bullshit

11 years ago I wrote this post: Social media blackouts for weddings.

I had a very technology-positive stance around the use of smartphones and cameras by guests at weddings; and bristled at those who chose to either not allow guests to take photos, or who asked guests not to post anything until they did.

I now look back at my views then in the same way I see the Google Glass Explorers (a.k.a. Glassholes), which was actually released a few days after my post. We were a bit naive in the adoption and acceptance, seeing tech as moving us forward without enough empathy and sometimes flat out dismissal of others who disagreed.

On a personal level my thoughts on weddings being a celebration for everyone to freely capture as they seem fit, in addition to the value of a professional photographer not being diminished by their photos, actually remains the same.

What’s changed is that I understand and respect those who don’t feel this way.

While I’ve developed those feelings over the last decade as I’ve gotten older and (dare I say it) wiser; this was clarified to me over the weekend as my family attended a friend’s wedding.

They didn’t wish to have people take photos during the ceremony. And while they were happy for people to take whatever photos they wanted afterwards at the reception, they requested no social posts until they were able to do so the next day.

It seemed like a great balance (although in this case the marriage celebrant could have been a bit less condescending when advising guests).

They had a Google Photos shared album so guests can share their photos with the couple throughout the night and the following days. Which was actually a very cool use of technology to see photos of multiple guests being shared during the night.

Anyway where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I was wrong.

In the end, it was a great night and lots of nice photos were taken by all. Many of which I would love to share, but don’t feel it’s appropriate for a wider audience and will keep most of those to our friends circle.

A recent article by The West Australian discusses the increasing trend by couples to ask their guests to not use any social media or take photos during their wedding ceremonies.

On one hand, I understand that you should be able to feel comfortable on your wedding day. But on the other hand, if I was told to not take photos and use social media at someone's wedding, I just wouldn't go in the first place.

At one point in the article it is mentioned that "technology was moving faster than good manners.." Bullshit!. I've said it for a while now but we need to stop trying to force out-dated social norms in the technological age.

There's also a mention in the article about people taking photos and posting them on social media before the couple could release their photos from their professional photographer. One future bride laments "It is the couple's day and it really should be up to them to release the pictures."

On a personal level, I feel this bride needs to get her head out of her ass and stop pretending like she's a celebrity.

However, this person should learn that people don't care about what photos are first and they are always going to want to see the professional photos. Wedding photographers, especially good ones, are expensive for a reason. They are able to paint a picture of the moment that any regular person with a camera, like myself, just couldn't do. Being first doesn't matter.

There also the benefits that technology has bought to the big day. No longer are couples forced to hire an expensive photographer in order to capture the celebrations as there are plenty of family/friends willing to take their own photos and share them with you.

The other benefit is that you will have multiple people taking photos, each showing different aspects of the day that just one photographer may not capture.

While my wife and I had a quiet wedding with 25-30 people only, we still have photos from 3-4 different people all with their own views and photographic memories of our wedding.

In the end, I think these couples are extremely misguided. Wanting to control the whole experience is not the point of a wedding. It's not meant to be a perfectly orchestrated production. It's meant to be a celebration; a social celebration for all to take part.

This piece was originally written on Google+

Original photo

Post editing via AfterFocus

AfterFocus – FREE - Google Play Store link

AfterFocus is a new app I've found that allows you to create DSLR-style background blurred photos by simply selecting focus area. It's really simple and effective, as you can see from the basic example above. The program also gives you the option to select how much blur is applied, what type of blur (lens or motion blur), and even adjust aperture. All applied to pictures you've already taken.

The one downside at the moment is you can only save images to a 800 x 600 resolution, but developers are planning to release a Pro version which I assume will increase that limit.

I can't call this a recommendation since I only just downloaded it, but it's free and worth a look if you like the blurred effect on your camera phone photos.

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