Photography and Social Media

This article explores the impact of social media on photography and the lives of individuals. It includes articles by experts and authors who discuss the unique approach to social media, the future of snapshot camerawork, and the link between social media photography and constructing subjectivity. The article also highlights the impact of social media on the lives of individuals and how it has become an integral part of their lives.

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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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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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.

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in today’s world as the pictures go digital. The book goes on to argue that the digital era is
perhaps the third main stage in the 170 year history of the area, after the Kodak as well as the
portrait periods of the past10. Sarvas, Frohlich, and Risto state the replacement of the pictures
with the digital capture and replacement of the storage in the style of images with the storage
in laptops and mobile phones. In this way, they try to describe and show the gap between
incremental innovations and disruptive innovations with the constant change in technology.
In the book, the history of photography, despite the extreme and continuous changes in
respect to technology and the way it is being sold, people still have a tendency to use pictures
and images to improve upon their memory, reinforce identity and to aid communication. In
addition to this, the book is noted to be rather essential as well as a must for the designers and
the engineers of imaging social media and technology that is, if they want to gain a better
understanding and perception about the history of domestic photography.
The author, Michele Zappavigna, in her article “Social Media Photography:
Constructing subjectivity in Instagram image” has tried to explore the photographs which are
present on the social media applications and websites such as the Tumblr, Instagram,
Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and so on. She has also tried to gain an interpersonal meaning
through the demonstration as well as depiction of the symbol of motherhood on the social
media platform, particularly, Instagram, in the form of a case study. Her work also discovers
the link that exists between the photographer and that of the representing participants as well
as the audience or the viewer of social media. In simpler words, the article explores and
investigates upon the various visual options which are made in contrast to these images to
interpret the bond between the ambient social media audience and the photographer. It can be
said that the images and pictures on the social media applications and websites try to depict a
conclusive shift in the personal photographic practices where in the foregrounding of the
10 Sarvas, Risto, and David M. Frohlich. From snapshots to social media-the changing
picture of domestic photography. Springer Science & Business Media, 2011.

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relationship between the viewer and photographer exists in a visual structure. Michele states
that individuals of today’s generation have made the usage of social media fit into their
everyday lives like a routine. Moreover, in her book, it is also stated that the smartphones are
mainly used to capture and document the moments of the life of an individual and then
upload the same on social media in order to get the view and perception from the audience11.
With the launch of touch phone screens, the concept of phone photography became rather
common and a lot of the researchers started to study on this particular topic. This is because,
with the launch of the smartphones, the resolution of the images got better along with the
better quality pixels installed in the phone. The major or the crucial way in which the social
media has had an impact on the camera phone photography is that it was affordable to stream
and gather moments with the ease of use as well as ease of portability. The author, Michele
Zappavigna, also makes use of the term ‘motherhood’ as a case study form the images
present on Instagram12. She goes on to investigate the choices that has been made in these
individual images and then interprets the relationship between the photographer and the
respondent along with their previous posts on instagram. In addition to this, Michele also tries
to work upon the Instagram feed of a user who has posted approximately 500 pictures
regarding her own experience of motherhood with the usage of the hashtag #motherhood.
Social photography has completely changed and at least 95 million pictures as well as videos
are being uploaded on a daily basis on Instagram alone13. Phone photography has become
extremely common amongst everyone irrespective of their gender and the place where they
stay. In this era of smart phones, every individual has a smart phone in their hand be it the
11 Zappavigna, Michele. "Social media photography: construing subjectivity in Instagram
images." Visual Communication15, no.3 (2016):271-292.
12 Liu, Leqi, et al. "Analyzing personality through social media profile picture choice." Tenth
international AAAI conference on web and social media. 2016.
13 Liu, Leqi, et al. "Analyzing personality through social media profile picture choice." Tenth
international AAAI conference on web and social media. 2016.

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youngsters, parents, or the older generation. Not only this, they even know how to operate it
properly.
Here, in this article, the author, Laura Gilbert states that the portrait of Richard Prince
of a Rastafraian wherein he was smoking a joint was rather similar to that of the art of Eric
McNatt as well as Donald Graham. One such post was of Donal Graham and the other of
Eric’s photograph of the artist and musician Kim Gordon. Prior to enlarging the posts,
Richard Prince erased and then went on to add some comments of his own, however, left the
pictures unaltered14. It was later seen that they forcefully had to sue him as per the allegation
of breach of copyrights. The artist, Richard, was asking the federal court of justice in
Manhattan to rule out two of his works on Instagram as fair use of images clicked by
someone else. Here, in order to defend himself, Richard argued that his work of art is the
suitable medium to explore the cybernetic world of the social media. Although, the judge
rejected Richard’s plea to dismiss the case because of lack of any ‘substantial evidentiary
support’ that would have perhaps proved otherwise. . The application, instagram, was initially
developed only for the IPhone users to allow them to take pictures and upload the same,
possible with a short caption15. However, in today’s time and age, this has changed to a rather
different aspect. In addition to this, Prince stated as well as claimed in a rather length
statement of approximately fifteen pages that his iPhone was not just an ordinary phone for
him, rather it was a paintbrush and that he wanted to reimagine the initial portrait16. However,
it can be seen that doing works like these, would not only affect the career and growth of the
14 Gilbert, Laura. 2018. "Richard Prince Defends Reuse Of Others’ Photographs".
Www.Theartnewspaper.Com/News/. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/richard-prince-
defends-re-use-of-others-photographs.
15 Hochman, Nadav, and Lev Manovich. "Zooming into an Instagram City: Reading the local
through social media." First Monday 18.7 (2013).
16 Gilbert, Laura. 2018. "Richard Prince Defends Reuse Of Others’ Photographs".
Www.Theartnewspaper.Com/News/. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/richard-prince-
defends-re-use-of-others-photographs.

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artists, but it would also have a rather severe impact on the market value and the brand image
of the artists and their works in the longer run, if not anytime soon17. Prince also adds up in
the length statement of his that it is not necessary that an image or a picture has to be altered
and changed for it to be termed as a fresh piece of art work.
The authors of the article “Exploring photography and self - fashioning in social
media”, Alise Tifentale and Lev Manovich try to elaborate that the social media platforms
such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Instagram has given the users an amazing opportunity
in the digital graphic culture as well as gives them the scope contemplate regarding the post
digital18. Since the last nine years, Lev Manovich has made use of the data visualisation as
well as the computational methods in order to be able to analyse the large numbers of the
posts on Instagram. In their first project which was known as Phototrails, the authors tried to
understand as well as analyse the 2.3 million pictures on Instagram which was being shared
by hundreds and thousands of people in the 13 global cities19. Out of all the social media
applications, Instagram has opened up an entire range of opportunities for the photographers
to display their talent and content. Unlike the previous methods of showcasing the work of
the photographers in a gallery or in a print publication, the works that are being published on
the social media has a larger audience. More often than not, it can be seen that these users
have adopted the phone photography medium as there are a lot of benefits that come along
with it such as ease of use and ease of carrying it around20. The features of the phone also
17 Palacios-González, César. "The ethics of clinical photography and social
media." Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 18.1 (2015): 63-70.
18 Tifentale, Alise, and Lev Manovich. "Selfiecity: Exploring photography and self-
fashioning in social media." In Postdigital aesthetics, pp. 109 - 122. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2015.
19 Tifentale, Alise, and Lev Manovich. "Selfiecity: Exploring photography and self-
fashioning in social media." In Postdigital aesthetics, pp. 109 - 122. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2015.
20 Palacios-González, César. "The ethics of clinical photography and social
media." Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 18.1 (2015): 63-70.

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allow the users to edit and filter their pictures immediately for them to be able to upload. It is
taken into consideration that each and every one is using the same Instagram application,
with the same bunch of filters and image correction settings, and the same picture square size,
the users still portray and show their pictures in an extremely different way21. This enables
the users along with the audience to learn from one another and then develop their content
accordingly before uploading the same on the social media platforms. This way, perhaps their
new approach to edit and alter the photograph will get more attention than it was getting
beforehand.
Hence, from all the above mentioned and discussed articles, it can be said that social
media platforms such as the YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and so on,
have a rather huge impact on the users and on the audience22. To conclude, it can be said the
social media has become an integral part of the live of an individual and it rather impossible
to find someone who is not acquainted with these applications and its features. Over the last
couple of years, there has been a drastic change and eventually it can be seen that more often
than not, a lot of the business enterprises and companies also make use of the social media
platforms to spread awareness regarding their products and services23. In addition to this, the
companies also make use of the social media to implement certain strategies in order to
improve their performance as well as to attract more and more customers.
21 Tifentale, Alise, and Lev Manovich. "Selfiecity: Exploring photography and self-
fashioning in social media." In Postdigital aesthetics, pp. 109 - 122. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2015.
22 Wagner, Jon. Images of information: Still photography in the social sciences. Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 2019.
23 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.

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
BIBLIOGRAPHY -
"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/.
Abbott, Wendy, et al. "An Instagram is worth a thousand words: An industry panel and
audience Q&A." Library Hi Tech News (2013).
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.
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.
Gibbs, Martin, et al. "# Funeral and Instagram: death, social media, and platform
vernacular." Information, Communication & Society 18.3 (2015): 255-268.
Gibbs, Martin, et al. "# Funeral and Instagram: death, social media, and platform
vernacular." Information, Communication & Society 18.3 (2015): 255-268.
Gilbert, Laura. 2018. "Richard Prince Defends Reuse Of Others’
Photographs".Www.Theartnewspaper.Com/News/.
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/richard-prince-defends-re-use-of-others-
photographs.

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
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.
Hochman, Nadav, and Lev Manovich. "Zooming into an Instagram City: Reading the local
through social media." First Monday 18.7 (2013).
Liu, Leqi, et al. "Analyzing personality through social media profile picture choice." Tenth
international AAAI conference on web and social media. 2016.
Palacios-González, César. "The ethics of clinical photography and social media." Medicine,
Health Care and Philosophy 18.1 (2015): 63-70.
Sarvas, Risto, and David M. Frohlich. From snapshots to social media-the changing picture
of domestic photography. Springer Science & Business Media, 2011.
Tifentale, Alise, and Lev Manovich. "Selfiecity: Exploring photography and self-fashioning
in social media." In Postdigital aesthetics, pp. 109 - 122. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.
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.
Wagner, Jon. Images of information: Still photography in the social sciences. Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage Publications, 2019.
Zappavigna, Michele. "Social media photography: construing subjectivity in Instagram
images." Visual Communication15, no.3 (2016):271-292.