Instagram is My Playground
I don’t remember the date of my first Instagram post, and I have no intention of scrolling back 17,501 posts to find out. Wouldn’t it be nice if the application had a “Go back to the first Post” button? I once did scroll back and took a note, or picture of the date – but I can’t find it! But I do know this, that the first day I ever tried Street Photography was May 19, 2013, so, it was likely around that time of my inaugural pressing of the share button. Not important. What is, is that I started.
I call it my playground because I don’t take it too seriously, other than coming up with a pleasing sequence of images. Images if feel look good together, kind of like a book, but not the classic style of having contrasting pictures side by side, I just like it when they have a similar feel. It may not seem so, but I do take pains to entertain. But this playground comes with a love/hate relationship.
I won’t bore you here with a rant. Everyone who’s used Instagram knows they like to change things. And yes, it’s annoying, but what can you do? Stay on top of it, figure it out, and deal with the change. And, expect more.
I do love the social aspect of the app, the global reach, the people you discover and their work, all exciting. However, as a photographer who creates stills, and one who sees value in the photographic image, just as it is, it would be my wish that the algorithm would balance this with trying to be YouTube. Keep the user on the app as long as possible, and make money, the Instagram way. And for a business model, this makes sense. But as global phenomenon for sharing creativity, all of it should get equal priority. And yes, I’m dreaming.
A quick explanation on how my Instagram account as evolved over the years, and why.
When I first started, I was happy with the number of views my post would achieve – and views are all that matter to me. Likes are nice, but if I were to stumble across my account, I wouldn’t likely like anything, knowing that if I did, I would wake up the next day find over 100 images in my main feed from this strange account. And why is that? Well, one day the algorithm decided that if you post an image, it’s sent to the bottom of the priority list, and you’d be lucky if anyone sees it. What to do? Push back! Post as many images as possible in one day, right to the point of locked account warnings (happened many times). And rarely do I post just one images. They don’t like images? – well let’s post more! And so, I did, and that’s the annoying part for anyone brave enough to follow me. I’ve multiple times post a warning for everyone who follows me, to go ahead and restrict my account, so their feed will only show below ten percent of my posts. And if they want to see more, they can freely go ahead. Hopefully, a happy compromise, because I have no intention of stopping posting many images. Why? If you consider in one year, 2018, I pushed the shutter button 100,000 times. I have a lot of images to share. And I can’t think of anything else to do with them at this time, so I might as well share them. It’s just what I do.
And why, Mike, do you always post a crop of the main image, along with this image – why not just share the full image and not the crop? Well, a couple of reasons, and for anyone who has struggled with how Instagram loves to crush any image you post to oblivion, you’ll understand the issue. What does this mean? Any image that gets shared, they will always discard data to reduce the size of the file. They have no choice but to do this, because if they didn’t the amount of storage on their servers would be incredibly huge! So, this is one of those problems that must be dealt with, otherwise the images you share get decimated and look terrible. And photographers, me included, typically obsess over image quality. This problem had to be solved. I go into detail in my book (at the time of writing) what I do to try and solve this issue, but it’s dated, so it doesn’t really matter. And even at the time I did figure out how to manage this issue, Instagram still discarded data on my images, even after doing everything I could to post an image within the ‘correct’ parameters. This means that the images were edited in such a way that the algorithm wouldn’t do anything to them, and if done correctly – they would look ‘good’. Problem solved? No! Instagram plays games as well! For a few days after you’ve shared the post, the images look fine, but then after that? They mess with it again, and I could tell the quality was reduced. And yes, I’m obsessed with this, at least I was. I’m now confident my editing process is as good as I can get it. And if I want better image quality, I invite people to go to my website, where I do have control over quality.
But the other problem I have with sharing images to Instagram, is that the average edited file comes out to around a gigabyte in size. My camera has a 50.6-megapixel sensor – and I always record full-size RAW files for maximum future possibilities, like creating large prints for a future gallery show! But I go through great pains to reduce the size of this file from one gigabyte to under 500 kilobytes. Ah, it hurts just to type that! But that is the reality of sharing my images on Instagram. So, a full frame uncropped image reduced to that small size typically looks terrible. The detail is gone, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Or is there? Yes! And that’s where the crop came to be part of my process. I like showing the detail of the subject, and so I creatively compose a crop from the main image. And this practice as been a valuable way to work. It’s made me look at an image and find multiple ways to compose it, a skill that can be use for various reasons. Think editorial. But please note: I photograph for me, I do not photograph for Instagram. However, I do at least compose these edits for the purpose of sharing on Instagram. But if I were to ever create a large print for a gallery, it would only be of the full image. And it would be large enough to see all the detail of the subject, so there would be no need for the crop. Although, I’ve come to love the cropped compositions of many of my images, and I do think that a book presenting them will come to fruition one day.
And lastly, why do I include lyrics along with some of my images? Again, I think of Instagram as my playground – I just do what is fun for me, and hopefully for you as well. And as I’m always listening to music as I edit, I’m always inspired to add lyrics or passages from books, or whatever to complete the ‘story’ I have in my mind when it comes to viewing the image. There’s always a thought, or feeling, or expression that goes into the creation of the images. It’s inspirational and inspiring to study the human character and expression – that’s why we get into street photography, at least that’s why I did. And these thoughts and feelings get baked into the edit every time. I always hear the music when I view the images after the edit. They just go together. It’s just how I work. Although I’d rather share the lyrics of a song, than the actual song as Instagram offers to you every time you make a post. I kind of find that annoying, scrolling along, enjoying all the shared images from everyone – then bam! A loud burst of music attached to a post! Not my game.
I’m sure there’s more to this, but that’s it for now. And yes, I’m probably somewhat annoying to any of you who follow me, and I do apologize for it, but at least you now know some of the reasons behind it.
Thanks for your time, Mike
April 09, 2026