Image: Sunset near the apartment I used to live.
I was doing some ‘house cleaning’ of my photos today and this one came to my attention. This is my first Instagram photo. I believe it’s very early, nearly half a year after they released Instagram. Now looking at it from a better photographer (I hope) point of view, its composition is bad, no proper cropping, and wrong focus (on the car and not the sunset). But this photo reminds me a lot about what Instagram used to mean to me and that so much has changed.
I can’t say I’m a professional photographer, but I definitely learned a lot since then and enjoying every moment of the journey. And it’s Instagram that brought out my inner artist. Started by shooting snapshots here and there for fun, I explored other’s photos and amazed by how great some people can do with the same app, same device I have. Intrigued, I started to learn how it’s done. I read blogs, bought photographer books, purchased by first DSLR, took photo walk with friends, etc. I steadily grow my followers on Instagram to 400+(not much I know, but I had a lot of fun communicating with them). You have to say, the social part of Instagram did encouraged me to be a better photographer. I could get instant feedback on whether my recent work has any major flaw, how to improve, and a lot of kind encouragement. Then Facebook happened, they bought Instagram. That’s a big thing to me, I just don’t trust Facebook. The appeal of Instagram is that it is a somewhat niche community, focus on photography and real live photo streams. No commercials, no ads, no ‘you might want to check this link’ kind of search results, just love for photography and share of everybody’s life moments. Facebook bought Instagram for 1 billion, and I believe they’ll definitely find some ways to get the money back, and that’ll ruin the whole thing for me.
So I quit Instagram and several months later only found out that more people are leaving due to the Terms of Service change they made. Sad sad to hear. I still love my photography journey, it’s just that it will be without Instagram, for now at least.
Image: Most liked photo on my Instagram