Photography and Social Media

Running head: PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Photography and Social Media
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Photography and Social Media
Social media, indeed has changed the lives of everyone be it the teenagers, kids, or the
adults. It has become a rare occasion to see an individual who is not on social media
application such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or Snap chat1. The very term social
media, has altered the essence and meaning of a lot of things where in one such thing
includes photography. Initially, photography had a rather different meaning attached to it than
what it has in today’s time and age. In today’s world, a lot of people are seen to be recording
or documenting every part of their life and then some go on to upload it on the social media
which has both pros as well as cons attached to it2. These photographs more often than not try
to grab the attention of the users and the audience on social media instead of simply showing
their passion or creativity. Perhaps, it can be said that the value of photographs have
converted into a type of public demonstration instead of it being a personal achievement.
In this world that is full of advancement and constant upgradation in terms of
technology, the individuals have adapted themselves to a situation that is similar to this. Each
and every individual tries to seek validation about their work or maybe even about
themselves when they upload pictures on instagram or any other sort of social media platform
for that matter3. A lot of the people have become extremely conscious about themselves as to
how they look and whether or not they fit the apparent standards set by the society as to how
one should look. This has led to a lot of researches as this has contributed to depression and
1 Gibbs, Martin, et al. "# Funeral and Instagram: death, social media, and platform
vernacular." Information, Communication & Society 18.3 (2015): 255-268.
2 Boley, B. Bynum, Vincent P. Magnini, and Tracy L. Tuten. "Social media picture posting
and souvenir purchasing behavior: Some initial findings." Tourism Management 37 (2013):
27-30.
3 Abbott, Wendy, et al. "An Instagram is worth a thousand words: An industry panel and
audience Q&A." Library Hi Tech News (2013).

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
anxiety attacks amongst other health effects on the individuals4. In addition to this, social
media photography has had a huge influence on the lives of individuals from across the
world. One such way is that the enablement of phone photography has changed the concept
as well as the way in which the artists and the photographers display their work or content5.
The use of social media has given the photographers and the artists the ease of clicking
pictures at any given point of time and then uploading the same with a short caption that
describes or highlights the image or video.
The authors, which is Mark Power, Adam Ferguson, and Maisie Cousins highlight
their individual perspective on the unique approach to social media. As per the photographer,
Mark Power, he believes that he had joined the social media applications and websites rather
late and that before finally joining Instagram in the year 2015, October, he had worked for at
least 30 years6. His motto or goal was to stay focussed on the long term objectives that he had
set for himself and to carry out the self - initiated projects effectively as well as efficiently.
Mark has published eight books till date after having researched quite a range of topics and
subjects. The most recent one being, “Destroying the Laboratory for the Sake of the
Experiment (2016)”7. In addition to this, as per the launch of the new application that is,
Cinnac, which is quite similar to Tinder. However, here the photographers get to rate the
photographs of others before they go on and post it on social media. But, when there are no
4 Guerrero, Paulina, et al. "Revealing cultural ecosystem services through Instagram images:
The potential of social media volunteered geographic information for urban green
infrastructure planning and governance." Urban Planning 1.2 (2016): 1-17.
5 Tiggemann, Marika, and Mia Zaccardo. "‘Strong is the new skinny’: A content analysis of#
fitspiration images on Instagram." Journal of Health Psychology 23.8 (2018): 1003-1011.
6 "Photography And Social Media: Three Perspectives". 2017. Www.Bjp-Online.Com/.
https://www.bjp-online.com/2017/12/a-creative-approach-three-photographers-reflect-on-
their-use-ofsocial-media/.
7 "Photography And Social Media: Three Perspectives". 2017. Www.Bjp-Online.Com/.
https://www.bjp-online.com/2017/12/a-creative-approach-three-photographers-reflect-on-
their-use-ofsocial-media/.

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
editors, the photographers are stuck with a lot of work as, now their task is not just to capture
a good shot but it is also to come up with a caption for the image that they clicked and then to
organise and post them. Maisie, the London based photographer, is well known for her
visceral clicks of the subject matter which is more often than not seen to be rather grotesque.
She began to share her work when she was just 15 years in age and since then, she has
developed and succeeded in her field as she has been featured in quite a few places such as in
the photo book of Charlotte Jansen and on a solo show at the TJ Boulting Gallery8. On the
other hand, Adam, gained recognition in the year 2009 due to the survey of the US led war in
the country, Afghanistan. He then started to work for a lot of clients that included TIME
Magazine and The New York Times. He started to publish his work on Instagram in 2012
and is currently working on two monographs.
The authors of this book, Sarvas, Frohlich, and Risto try to describe and elucidate on
the future of snapshot camerawork with regard to the constant advances as well as innovation
in the technologies, social practices and consumer business. In addition to this, the study also
looks at and scrutinises the relation between film photography and digital. Photography. The
authors also try to present the trends of future with the help of the snapshot technology. As of
yet, this is the only book that has studied upon the changing technology and the practice of
digital and film photography and its impacts on the photographers. In simpler words, the
authors of the book ‘From Snapshots to Social Media’ describe the history as well as the
future of the domestic photography as arbitrated by the changes in technology9. Over here,
the term domestic photography talks about the culture of the ordinary people using, sharing,
and capturing photographs. Moreover, domestic photography is in a certain state of instability
8 "Photography And Social Media: Three Perspectives". 2017. Www.Bjp-Online.Com/.
https://www.bjp-online.com/2017/12/a-creative-approach-three-photographers-reflect-on-
their-use-ofsocial-media/.
9 Sarvas, Risto, and David M. Frohlich. From snapshots to social media-the changing picture
of domestic photography. Springer Science & Business Media, 2011.