16 October,2022 08:27 AM IST | Mumbai | Nidhi Lodaya
Mitali Sheth Shah doesn’t turn her art into reels “just because it’s trending” as her artwork needs to be read. Pic/Ashish Raje
The last post on Pune-based photographer Sahil Shikalgar's Instagram handle @visuals_by_zia was on November 30 last year. "I stopped posting because I wanted to write about my pictures. Each one of them has a story," says the 28-year-old. "Photography is a grey area. [As a photographer, you have to ask] is the subject the art or the composition?" Shikalgar believes Instagram's focus on visuals takes away from this storytelling, and he isn't the only one who feels this way.
"Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app." This came directly from the horse's mouth in July 2021 when the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri shared how the app would now lean more towards entertainment and videos. "At Instagram," read his tweet, "we're always trying to build new features that help you get the most out of your experience. Right now we're focused on four key areas: Creators, Video, Shopping and Messaging." Over the following year, many independent creators - who used the space to showcase their work, build a community and find work - decided they would not be dancing to the tune.
Pic/Nishad Alam
Among them is Bengaluru based Alicia Souza. Through her Instagram account, the 35-year-old illustrator and author offers a glimpse into her personal life and work to 4,00,000 followers. Souza is known for her jumbo yearly planners, packed with stickers, and other illustrated merchandise. "I definitely feel the pinch on a daily basis," she says about the changing algorithm. "We saw this happen with Facebook when it became not-so creator friendly, but the speed at which Instagram changed surprised me."
She doesn't mind the push to reels; she minds that it is at the cost of regular posts. "Many followers reached out to say that they aren't getting my work
on their feed," she says. "It is not nice when you have already built a community, but suddenly are not allowed to address them or give them what they signed up for." Although her business is not hit yet, Souza is not very optimistic. "Most of my freelancing business comes from Instagram," she says, "It will change now... [But] I'm not changing my profession to become a video-editor to fit this new version of the app.
I don't mind recording how I draw, but not every story can be turned into a video. Some are meant to be read, like a comic strip." An alternative, Souza says, is Patreon. "But it is a subscription-based platform. One has to rely on Instagram to get people to come there," she says. Souza feels that a young creator, who hasn't built a community yet on Instagram, would be deterred by the changing algorithm, but for someone like her, it is a challenge to leave it completely.
A digital creator and photographer, who works out of Mumbai and Pune, requesting not to be named in this article, said that he has found a middle ground. "I also post my work on 500px and Eyeem. They help sell my photos and generate revenue," says the 33-year-old with over 76,000 followers on Instagram. He has been in the profession for 15 years and posts a photo once or twice a month on Instagram to reassure his genuine audience about his well being. There was a time when an Instagram presence was important to him, and it brought in revenue but now it triggers his anxiety. He points out that some photographers take pride in not being on the app so as to not be considered "Instagram photographers".
The volatile algorithm is the deal-breaker. "It changes every month, week and sometimes daily, which affects the artist community. They can't turn all their work into video," says Andheri-based Zenobia Jungalwalla, who runs a social media agency. While calling Instagram's decision to give emphasis on one format over another unfair, she also admits that it was the need of the hour. The next big platform, she says, is Pinterest. "If you need an image heavy platform, Pinterest is it. It is underrated in India but abroad, it has a lot of value, and many brands and photographers are on it. The only problem is the quality of pictures, but they are working on it."
"Instagram doesn't serve much purpose now. It's more of a marketing and advertising tool," says Delhi-based photographer Jishnu Chakraborty (@thecolorblindman). He lost interest in the app in two phases. "First, when I realised that the algorithm is supporting reels [to fill the gap left by TikTok's ban]; and later when they changed the aspect ratio, tilting in favour of video. It is a slow death," he says. As his posts don't get that many impressions, he focuses on stories for better engagement.
"I link to my Behance profile to redirect my audience," shares the 30-year-old photographer who is going back to the basics. "But when it comes to discovery, I don't know where to go. I had a website before Instagram, which I am building again so that I can link it to my stories." He has been using Behance for 10 years, where he hosts commercial shoots. His Instagram has pictures of musicians.
Mitali Sheth Shah, 34, an illustrator and comic artist from Peddar Road, won't add a song to her artwork just because it's trending. "They need to be read. They demand attention," she says. Shah began posting actively in 2017. Her account, @thestorybookofmylife, has 18,500 followers. "The years 2018 and 2019 were good," she says. "My work even resonated with some celebrities, who shared it." Shah specialises in personalised invites and storybooks, and has designed them for Neha Dhupia, Farah Khan Kunder and Ira Dubey, among others. "Instagram was my main source of getting work," she says.
Shah noticed a slump in her growth, in terms of new followers and views, in mid-2020 when the reel format caught on. "It [Instagram] doesn't work for me [anymore]; I'm thinking of other options. For now, I am doing an NFT (non-fungible token) art collaboration."
Photographer Raghav Pasricha, 33, doesn't have a problem with reels, but "the Instagram market and algorithm is not something I can fit into." About two months ago, he found a new medium to share work - Vero, a social media platform free from advertisement and algorithms. He joined the platform with the possibility of getting a different kind of engagement than Instagram.
Currently, he's on both. "Instagram is a place where I can periodically share my work with a familiar audience, while on Vero, there is a possibility to work with a strategy as it seems more open-ended," says the Delhi resident. When asked to compare both platforms, Pasricha points out that Instagram still shows people's reactions quickly, unlike Vero. However, Vero offers a possibility to meet people from the same field and get work. "Vero is still evolving," he says. "So I have a chance to evolve with it. It is an experiment."
While creators exit or straddle Instagram and another platform, Goregaon-based photographer and writer Ritesh Uttamchandani foresaw the problem and quit around 2017. He even deleted the account, though he had about a lakh-and-a-half followers. A decision many friends called âstupid'. "The AI [artificial intelligence] killed it for me," he says. "They decided to get into news sharing, launched Instagram for business, decided to promote creators and slowly the control went from creators to influencers. Today, it no longer offers scope for someone to be invested in a piece of art that demands attention." He admits to being a quasi influencer and promoting products but he says he deleted the account to be off the radar. He returned to Instagram a couple of months later, but does not post apart from some stories about his work. "It [Instagram] has some good things but also a lot of noise," says Uttamchandani. "Does that noise inspire you?" Uttamchandani has created two separate email accounts for the purpose of subscription so that he can have a clutter-free experience. He is currently subscribing to American author Ted Gioia, Amsterdam-based photographer and curator Wesley Verhoeve, American fiction writer Andy Adams, among others.
Shikalgar is also looking at subscriptions and newsletters as he builds his website. "As artistes," he says, "We want attention, and a 15-second attention span is not enough. I want to write the story about the image and about the specifications of my camera settings and gear. I want my audience to spend a few minutes consuming the story, knowing the premise and having a look at the visual to connect it for themselves." Like Souza, he will use Instagram to redirect audience to his website.
