This is interesting! I'm also interested in the reason why photo dumps are posted *in the first place*. Why is there the compulsion to share these moments online? What does that say about the way things become real, or valuable to us? https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/instagram-photo-dump-trend

My first reaction to a beautiful sunset is often 'Can't wait to post that' as if I can only properly view it via looking at it on my Instagram Story. It's something I'm trying to personally challenge during lockdown (not saying it NEEDS challenging, that's a personal choice) but

posting your entire life has become so normalised that the first question around 'photo dumps' seems to have stopped being 'why must we post these moments at all?' and instead is 'how do they challenge our existing posting habits?'

I do think a lot of my personal feelings of being unmoored and not like I'm living in the moment is very connected to how I'm documenting and performing that moment online. If I am viewing the sunset through the lens of my camera, I am instantly out of that moment.

Not to sound like a luddite but the moment my smartphone camera gets involved with documenting a moment, it goes from a potential memory to a shoot or performance of a moment. Suddenly I am fiddling with angles and exposure controls on my camera because there is the now the

option of capturing something 'perfect' to share, rather than something real. This categorically does not happen with a disposable camera because the same option for refinement and perfection doesn't exist; you snap and go and the memory of the experience is what remains.

It is funny when I scroll back through my camera roll – i have so many missing memories of moments that I've captured. And it's lovely to see the pictures but I also wonder how much stronger the memories of my feelings etc at the time would be if I was using a different device

Something else I've been thinking about a lot is intention vs output with Instagram. I don't INTEND to slip into influencer speak or post like one, but it's pointed out to me that I do at times, because that's the register and posting manner the platform encourages. Or

posts are received like that, because it's the recognised language of the platform. I fundamentally think it is v difficult to escape from that & it is something I've found v hard to resign myself to – that by engaging with that platform I am reproducing the behaviours I critique

It feels like a misrepresentation of intent and my 'authenticity'. But that IS the platform. And by choosing to engage with it, and make content that will be seen, I *am* reproducing some of those behaviours. I made social tiles for an article today b/c it looks better on Insta

Clearly I posses both knowledge of what 'works' on Instagram and the desire to apply that to the content I am sharing. Acknowledging my agency in that choice is very hard.

My intention is to either:
- share work by me and others to get it traction
- share bits of myself

And it feels very difficult to reconcile those perfectly normal desires with the knowledge that to do so, I am adopting the influencer-esque registers of Instagram

These are stream of consciousness thoughts and I have absolutely no answer because I'm not going to divest from the platform as it's so useful to share work. But that then feeds these feelings further. I feel a bit trapped tbh. And like I should definitely get a disposable camera