04/20/2023
This is my first post in almost 2 years.
And can’t stop thinking how much instagram has changed.
When I discovered it IG was a photographer’s playground, with just a cell being able pics of whatever I feel like, at any moment, any place, without the pressure of a client, others -and my own!- expectations, and not even worry about the technical part since it didn’t involved using a “real” camera was just pure bliss.
So, what went wrong?
Why I don’t even feel like opening it anymore…?
Instagram went from feeling like a 4 years old again taking shaky pictures with that first Kodak Instamatic my parents gave me, to this full time pressure, TikTok imitation, algorithm ridden, toxic environment that affects teenagers in the worst possible ways and creates the false perception that they (we) have to be perfect (and hyperconnected) to even be normal.
Or socially acceptable.
Instagram used to be a blast, unleashed creativity, beauty in all shapes and forms.
Not this implicit body shaming.
, one of my (unintentional) mentors told me once: “as a photographer, I just want too see the beauty, but also end up avoiding to look into the ugly…”
So today I just wanted to look into the ugly.
And reconcile with the fact that I may be part of the problem…
Not that I know what to do about it.
But at least want to acknowledge it.
So will keep showing the beauty I see trough the lens, in the hope it could be understood as such; beautiful moments frozen in time, not a lifestyle, not a bar for the others to measure against.
I know Jake was going trough a separation when we did the first picture.
There is a sad beauty to it, its loneliness, just floating without any ground under his feet. Somehow feels very on point.
But also, I became a father since that picture was shot, and since that day little Luca became the center of my universe. So all the other pics are about him, for whom I just hopelessly hope for a less superficial, more meaningful world to live in.
He is just a beautiful and fresh soul like all the others kids, and they all deserve better than being manipulated to improve the bottom line of a bunch of faceless companies.
