The way we like #Instagram

Images are everywhere in our everyday lifes. Colorful advertisments on the streets, in public transport or shops. Internet, where each website is less or more pictorial. Newspapers, where images take more and more space. Invention of digital camera  allowed us to produce thousands of images by ourselves, without costs of developing films and printing photographs. Camera in the mobile phone increased this number even more. Nowadays we are carrying our cameras everywhere, anytime. Though shooting just for ourselves is not enough. We are publishing milions of photographs each day in the social media.  And one of them is concetrated strictly on the images. It is Instagram.

Photo: Instagram (www.instagram-brand.com)

However, it is not only a place, where we are just publishing our photograps. There are plenty of other photography sites, where users can share their photos and get some critical feedback from the viewers. That is not the goal for many Instagram users. Photographs on the Instagram usually show some pieces of our life. We are presenting places, where we were that day. Posting images of our daily activites. Informing others that we were on the gym, shopping mall or on the beach somewhere far away. We are sharing what we were wearing and eating. So viewers appreciate not only quality of our photographs. They appreciate places, where we were, clothes, which we were wearing, food, which we were eating.

Photo: Instagram (www.instagram-brand.com)

Of course, not everyone from more than 300 milions people, which are using Instagram everyday, is using it in the same way. But almost every active user is creating somethning on his profile. For example by chosing theme which is attractive. We are not photographing everything, but only things somehow selected. By capturing this thing as nice as it is possible. By editing photo and improving it with filters. Sometimes it goes even further. We can create life, which doesn’t exist.

Almost 90 thousand users were following Amalia Ulman at the end of her art performance. With dyed hair and changed wardrobe she was sharing her half-naked photographs, pictures from rich-looking shops and apartments. She acted an attractive, rich and naive young woman. Ulman communicated a lot about her pivate life, including results of her pregnancy test. People believed, that a life, that she has never lived, is real. Ulman’s performance showed, among other things, what people willingly follow and what you have to do to get an attention.

Photo: Amalia Ulman

But that was an extreme case of creation on Instagram. Usually users show incomplete and tall but real image of their lifes. And there are few types of photographs, which appears frequently. These viral types get you an attention, but also affect habits and lifestyle of followers and authors.

One sort of pictures are photos of food. This trend had an impact on how we eat. Popularity of sharing food images made our meals look more aesthetic, bright and colorful. We are capturing them before eating, so taste is not that important as look. According to the results of The Waitrose report published in The Guardian one on five Britsh had published photo of their meal in the past month. Almost half of us care more about the dish if photo of it might be taken and 40 per cent worries more about presentation than they did five years ago. When we would like to take a photo of our breakfast, we won’t eat boring bread with cheese, we would rather go for some green avocado or colorful shake.  Some people even use sometimes ingredients just because they look good. So aesthetic is first and taste later.  

Photo: healthyeating_jo/Instagram; The Guardian

Second type are fashion photographs. The Huffington Post published a list of the most interesting fashion accounts. Majority has more than one milion followers. In each country we can find fashion bloggers or so-called insta-models, who made their carrers on the Instagram. They are inspiring users to wear similar looks or take photos in the similar way. However, not only users are interested in their work. Big worldwide brands pay them to promote logotype or specific product. Also, they go even deeper. Vice-president of luxury fashion store, said in The Guardian, that  they use Instagram as a tool to “find a particular product or type of brand that we think fills a gap in our offering”. So that Instagram has its impact on what we are wearing. 

Photo: Jessica Mercedes/Instagram

We can list more and more spheres, where Instagram has its impact. Travelling, when we go somewhere to take a photo and share it on the Instagram or travelling accounts, which inspire us to travel to the specific place. Accounts about fitness, healthy lifestyle and so on.

Naturally, as it was said before, not eveyrone use Instagram in the same way. Even though this is a powerful tool, which affects lifes of many users. Passive ones by content shared by other users. They are creating trends and showing specific type of the life-style. Active users by, one would say that, their own images. Documentation of our life must look good. 

Photo: Instagram