Blog #7 – Visual Communities and Social Imaging (Week 9)
Before the internet friends and family shared photos by taking film to get developed and having hard copies in photo albums. As the years went on and the internet became more prominent these photos would be taken digitally and stored and shared online. With the internet everywhere and in the palms of our hands Burgess et al. (2013, p. 3) identified it’s changed the way we capture, remember and communicate personal images of everyday and family life. When using traditional social media such as Facebook, it requires you to live an experience offline and post it later online to relive the moment and have your friends comment which starts the conversation (Herrman 2014). Social media has now evolved with the introduction of Instagram and Snapchat. On both of these apps you are able to share photos in live time. Snapchat started this trend which allows you to communicate with friends through photos, usually a selfie and a small amount of text can be used. This social imaging can be sent to individuals or added to your story for all your contacts to see. I use Snapchat as an easy way to take a quick photo of where I am or what I’m doing or even a pretty picture of me first thing in the morning to say hello to some close friends (lucky friends I know).
Social imagining allows you communicate through photos, although you can use social media to be a part of a visual community. Instagram allows us to follow pages with others who share similar interests. A community I am heavily involved in on Instagram is the “Traditional Tattoo” community. Instagram provides me with a platform to follow traditional tattoo artists and shops from all over the world. I am able to gain inspiration from tattoos they post but also (this is the best part) see if an artist is coming to your city. Instagram has even allowed tattoo artist to promote when they will be a guest artist at another shop and this could be in another state or country. Recently an artist I follow from Perth posted he was coming to Brisbane (where I live). I doubt I’m making it over to Perth in the near future so through Instagram I was able to reach out and book an appointment with him while he was in Brisbane. In traditional tattoo community shops host “flash days”, this is where each artist at the shop will design a sheet of palm size tattoos and you line up in the morning to book in for that day. During these flash days I’ve able to meet in person people I’ve shared tattoo interest with and meet artist I admire.
(Alfred Street Tattoo, 2018)
Burgess, J & Vivienne, S, 2013, ‘The remediation of the personal photograph and the politics of self-representation in digital storytelling’, Journal of Material Culture, 18(3), pp. 1-29.
Herrman, J, 2014, ‘Meet The Man Who Got Inside Snapchat's Head’, Buzzfeed, 28th January, Viewed 3rd June 2018.
<https://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/meet-the-unlikely-academic-behind-snapchats-new-pitch?utm_term=.urRjgnLYJ#.vhMRpEj1a>
Alfred Street Tattoo, 2018, Instagram, 19th May.
Caleb Harrower, 2018 Instagram, 9th May.