How To Be A Famous Social Media Photographer
This instructive field manual will assist you in transitioning from not famous social media photographer to famous social media photographer. Follow each step dogmatically.
Step 1: Shoot Film
To be a famous social media photographer, you must shoot film. Preferably medium format. Since your photos will be most commonly viewed at a maximum of 1080p wide on a maybe 6″ handheld device, you want to ensure that you are spending as much money as possible to make those pixels count. The bigger your resolution, the more details and aesthetic that viewers will see as they scroll by at a hundred miles per hour in between memes and influencers in front of places the viewer will never afford to visit.
As much as possible, photograph sad-looking women.
If you are shooting a medium other than film, it should only be phone. This leads to...
Step 2: Your Medium Is Your Personality
Repetition is the key to communication. If you are not repeating yourself, you are not communicating. To this end, you should express early and often exactly what format you are shooting on, and ensure that you highlight this point in as many places as possible.
Your Instagram, Facebook, or Tumblr bio should include references to film as often as possible (e.g., “Film photographer. Shoots people, places, things. Mostly film, some phone photographs. Sees the world in analog.”)
(Note that pointing out that you shoot film guarantees followers. Indicating your proclivity to also photograph using a phone demonstrates that you are flexible, and can dabble in plebeian modes of artistry. Where photographing with film makes you mysterious and arcane, like an alchemist, shooting with a phone makes you relatable.)
Furthermore, in the description of your photos, ensure to point out what film you used, as well as which film camera that also shoots said film. In addition, use as many hashtags as possible to point out the analog nature of the photographs. This should include the words “film” and “analog”, as well as their equivalents in Spanish, French, Swahili, Pashto, Amharic, and Swedish.
If you opt to make photos with a phone, ensure that you are as diminutive and self-deprecating as possible in your description. Ensure that you preface the words “phone photograph” with “just a”, so that everyone knows that this is not an actual art piece, but “just a phone photograph” despite the fact that you will spend three hours applying filters to it in VSCOcam before settling on A6 at 6 intensity because it just feels more natural and effortless.
When commenting on photos that were created by lesser photographers on non-analog mediums, state how very impressed you are that you it was shot on a DSLR or micro-four-thirds format, and it looks very good...for digital.
Erstwhile, laud phone photographs as a masterclass of digital photography.
You will be sure to attract many followers this way, and you will be adored.
Be as condescending as possible to those who shoot something other than film. The hashtag “#shootfilm” should be a call to action, implying under its breath “#shootfilmnotmegapixels”, because you are superior, and superiority demands satisfaction, and you cannot be satisfied unless your superiority is known and liked and followed and acclaimed, and in this way you will be caught in a submerged weir personality, a drowning machine of ego and hubris. Shoot film. Not megapixels.
Step 3: Cite Your Sources
When replying to comments such as “Wow!! 🙌🙌🙌” in your Instagram feed, include as many references to the film photographers of the last 60 years that influenced you. This list of influences will be:
William Eggleston
Diane Arbus
Vivian Maier
Gordon Parks
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Vivian Maier again
End of list because these are the only ones you see reposted on “art curation” accounts
To the aforementioned “Wow!! 🙌🙌🙌” comment above, your response would likely look like:
“Thanks! I owe it all to Eggleston, Arbus, Maier, Parks, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and did I mention Vivian Maier, because wow! Without their influence I would not be the photographer I am. I love how the world looks on film, and that’s why I only shoot analog/medium format.”
Despite the fact that no one asked and the commenter was a Russian bot building social media credibility for its inevitable take-down of American intellectualism, you must always cite your sources in line with Steps 3 and 2 of this guide. Name drop often, and ensure your medium is your personality.
Step 4: If You Can’t Shoot Film, Fake It
This is a last ditch effort. If you cannot shoot film for whatever reason, do not settle on shooting with your digital camera and editing your photos in a way that pleases you. Instead, go for the marginally more acceptable route of film emulation.
Remember, digital photography is not acceptable unless it is done via phone. However, emulation is the highest form of flattery. Use one of the many “film look” presets and apply them fervently to your RAW files (because if there is a lesser form of photograph than any of the others, it is the JPEG straight out of the camera -- that soulless, evil medium that has no place on this earth. You will shoot RAW, you will never capture in JPEG, and choosing to do so is choosing namelessness in the hells of photographic obscurity).
These will look nothing like film. They will be oversaturated, over-contrasted, cloyingly false emulations. But you can apply the next best thing to #film to your photo’s hashtags: #lookslikefilm.
It doesn’t, but the inclusion of “film” means it will show up in search results, and you will at least be seen. Maybe liked. Not so much followed. But my stars, the dopamine rush.
Good luck.
