instagram.
BAM. right out the gate. that way, if you know you *hate* instagram you can stop reading.
i love instagram. if you follow me, you know this. if you look me up, i'm about 30so pictures shy of having 1k on my feed. i've been with it since the beginning. and yeah, i love it. now of course there are people on there who really don't give a shit. and by "don't give a shit" i mean, they snap and edit with no regards to lighting, exposure, white balance, skin tones, content, composition. and hey, guess what? that's totally fine. there are also a lot of people on there who are photographers, or who aspire to be. there are beautiful images floating around the instagram universe, beautifully composed, beautifully exposed, real art. my feed in particular? well, i am as i've said before, a wannabe writer. i would get lost in books as a kid, the diary of anne frank for example, and think to myself "some day i'll have a story worth telling, a story people will want, a story people will love" and it always starts with good intentions and diaries with keys for locks that can be popped with a bobbie pin. i have piles of those diaries. the majority with 3-5 pages of writing. the most memorable entry being that which recalled how many eggs my dads cockatoo laid. i believe it was 97. and then when i became a mom, i started a little blog about my daily life and struggles and sadness and joy and birth and blah blah blah. and it fell by the wayside, per usual. and THEN i was all "i'm going to be a photographer, and i'm going to photograph my daily life and it will be enthralling and i'll have thousands of readers!" ha...right.
it probably should be said that i'm part of the internet generation. i remember our first computer, gateway, cow box. i remember AIM and AOL and as far as i was concerned that was THE internet. only child, single parent, lots of au pairs, you do the math. the minute AOL and AIM Chat hit the scene, most of my hours were spent seeking human interaction via the computer. cell phones and texting ruled my life in high school. i just wanted all.these.friends. people who i *had* to talk to. chat dates that *had* to be met. i have to answer this text RIGHT NOW.
now, since having kids and becoming married it's changed again. the loneliness that i had experienced for the first part of my life had transformed into a new feeling. the feeling of being a mother. which is simultaneously a ticket into the best club in the world and also the loneliest. and so back to the internet it was, to find mom groups, chat forums, etc. i mean, *is* lime green poop normal and if i drink a beer will it *really* boost my breastmilk supply?!
and then instagram came along. and it peanut butter and jellied my favorite things. people, friendships, interacting, creating, supporting. see out here in the bigger photography world, it's tough. it's tough to believe you're good, to see where you belong, where you want to go. tough to find other photographers who are confident enough with themselves to be your friend and not feel threatened. and there's all the separations, the judgments, the you didn't go to art school and you're not a "real" photographer because you're self taught and yadda yadda yadda. i say, you're picking up a camera and shooting something, good for you. i don't care if no one but your husband sees it. you looked up at something and thought it was worth remembering.
i have grown to really like the people that follow me. there is a whole community there. yea, sometimes i post pictures of my kids doing stupid shit that probably no one in the world cares about. but sometimes i think. i compose. i expose. because that's what i do. i see art in everyday life, i find symmetry and lines and shadows. i find light and i find people and faces and creatures and colors and it's all interesting to me and so sometimes, i shoot it. and sometimes, it's just with my iphone. instagram allows me to pluck the tiniest, most mundane, slip through the cracks, bits and pieces of my life. my life when i don't have the big dog camera at my fingertips. and i am so, so grateful for that. for the people on instagram who commiserate with a couch full of laundry, a sink full of dishes, a tantrum baby or an overtired mom. and for the people who continue to inspire each other to create, just create, what their heart desires, what they see in their life, and share it. there are so many stories i feel so connected to on instagram. it's sometimes enough to pull me out of a bad mood. my IG peeps are great at making me laugh, at making me see beauty, at opening up and inspiring my creativity. i ain't afraid to say it, my IG peeps inspire my own creativity and keep my artist brain open and seeing, seeing, always seeing.
if you have an iphone and don't have instagram yet, try it out. if you have an android, be patient, i hear rumblings that there's something in the works for you. if you want to follow me you can find me on instagram @ifurie and if you don't have an iphone but still want to see all the boring little moments of my life, you can click the tumblr icon to the right or go here
if my point got lost in the jumble that is my attempt at writing, here it is. support each other. i wake up every day and some new piece of news breaks my heart, makes me want to bury my head. we are becoming such an angry nation, pitted against each other in a million different ways. no more apparent then when people are taking the time to put down the art form of another. just support each other. not everyone is the best, not every shot is the money one, not every moment will be drenched in the perfect light or shadows, but they are yours, they are ours, and they are to be had and kept as we wish.
isabel
