In the past few month’s I’ve taken an interest in street photography. While I’m certainly not very good at all, it’s been a great experience and a wonderful opportunity to learn. I’ve enjoyed going on photo walks even if I end up not getting anything worth keeping at all. Part of me seeing this as a learning endevor is trying to push myself out of my comfort zone. This has manifested itself in several different ways. For instance, I’ve given myself an “assignment” that every time I go out shooting, I ask someone if I can take a portrait of them. It doesn’t matter if I get turned down, or of they’re hostile, what matters to me is that I’m challenging myself to ask. More often then not, I have found that people ask you why you want to take their picture, and then when you say you’re doing street photography, they say why not, then sit or stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. As such, I’ve come up with a list of quick questions to try to break people out of their self-conscious shells. Something like “if you could make an a pet of any animal what animal would it be, and what would you name it?”

Another thing I’ve been challenging myself to do is to post the pictures somewhere they’re shared and visible. This has come in the form of an Instagram account. For years I’ve been resistant to creating an Instagram account because so much of the platform is sort of an embodiment of all the worst things about social media- the meticulously falsified pictures that project an image of a lifestyle, aesthetic, and self-worth that is detrimentally affecting people who inevitably compare their own bloopers to someone else’s alleged highlights. However, Instagram has undoubtedly become the largest photo sharing platform in the world, so cognizant of my bloopers, I decided to create an account.

I very quickly ran into a problem, which was that I would post something, and it would look terrible. Which isn’t to say that my pictures, at least initially, were great to begin with, just that when posted on Instagram they seemed especially terrible. After talking with a friend of mine who’s a graphic designer and maintains a very active Instagram presence, I came to the conclusion that this was likely because of Instagram’s compression algorithm. The effect of this can be mostly summed up in a few points.

Firstly, the algorithm will downgrade any picture that is larger to a maximum of 1080 x 1350, which is minuscule compared to the 20.1 mp capacity of my camera, even though it was released in 2012. Secondly, photos are embedded onto Instagram’s front end UI, which is a blinding white background. Thirdly, photos are often viewed in small format. Although there are certainly tablets which encroach on computer territory in terms of screen size, most pictures are viewed on a cellphone, which tends to have around a 5 or 6 inch screen. Fourthly, the brightness on a phone, comparatively speaking, is most commonly dimmer than a computer screen.

The effect of this is that I would often upload a photo which looks great on my laptop, but it would look small, dim, and ineffectual when I would pull up the photo on my Instagram app. One of the biggest issues is represented size. On my 5 inch phone screen, a picture rarely takes up more than 3 inches, whereas on my laptop when I’m viewing, it normally takes up 11 or 12. The human eyeball has about 120 degrees of vision, but only about 6 of them in the center are detailed enough to make out things like text and faces. On a larger screen, the eye is allowed to wander, moving from one element to another. On a phone, it is not, Everything is given equal weight and considered simultaneously. This has a tremendous impact on composition. Additionally, because of the brightness of the background UI, the eye is not given a chance to adjust and pull out those details. The result is that everything is small, dark, and dim.

As such, I’ve definitely made changes in the way I compose, frame, and edit my photographs that will get posted. I often save two versions of the same raw file, one that will get posted, and one that I believe is the better photograph.

The reason for this post is for me to maybe possibly try to redeem some of those better edits. While this blog does have a mobile interface (thank you, Mr. WordPress), I don’t think many people read this blog on mobile. Well, to be frank, I know that not many people read this blog at all. But to those who might, and to the cold, sterile vacuity of an over saturated internet ether, here are some photographs.

P.S. it has just occurred to me that I should probably include my Instagram handle for those who are interested: @craquelure