Are we obsessed or tuned in

We all have done it, spent hours scrolling thru our phones seemingly looking at nothing. I don’t even know if I could tell you the last thing I read on my phone since I was doing it just to kill time. For me being on Instagram is part of my job. Being self employed and a professional touring photographer for musicians it’s what I like to call the necessary evil. We after all have to get the “engagement” or is it the “likes”? is it the attention? the moments we actually have stopped engaging with and just want people to see.

I still remember when one of my posts got 100k views. It blew my mind and forced me to go camping cause it was actually really ruining me for a minute. I didn’t understand how we can all show up to this little grid but are so scared to show up to life. How this little grid of illusions which now I talk freely about on my own Instagram is not just kinda ruining us but is. Everyone wants to say if it was all gone they would be fine, I can take a break whenever, I just use it for inspiration, I just want to take photos, I mean at the end of the day we all are hooked in someways.

I have watched first hand how this has impacted my clients and my own work. As someone who plans to be in the creative industry forever I have to check myself and ask myself who am I creating this for today? and furthermore I make myself do the silly projects I still really want to do even if they won’t get as many “likes”. Social media and actual design now share such a blurred line it’s almost impossible to know where one starts and the other one ends. So I ask you, and encourage you to take daily breaks from the grid, to go outside, to connect with people in real time, to buy someone a coffee and actually look into their eyes and to be here. And if you remember nothing else, the grid will always be an illusion and to show up to real life.

Sincerely with love, a pro photographer who makes her living making people look perfect on the grid