Today, there is a shared, common desire to look our best in every photograph. To only share attractive, curated pictures.
However, it was not always like this. The ability to curate, judge, edit, delete—as we capture—is so new we still don’t know how to deal with it. And with AI generated images entering the scene at an increasing rate, the horizon just seems to keep on expanding.
I. The Past
My parents and even the generation before, did not have the luxury of smartphones and infinite photos.
Flipping through old photo albums and I can see that my parents definitely snapped their fair share of photos—but they were limited to how many could fit onto a film strip—usually 36. And there’s an immediate cost associated with every picture. The development, processing and printing. So each one needed to count.
In an even scarcer era of my grandparents, there are so few photos that you wonder if they knew what a camera was.
One trait of these bygone eras is the lack of “beautiful” photos. It was far more about function. Capturing a moment in time, a person, a location, or whatever it was. To show where you had been, what you once looked like. Regardless of whether by today’s standards they’re “beautiful” or “ugly”, if that’s all you’ve got, then they’re more valuable by default.
I can only imagine what it would have been like to see my grandparents with smartphones in their youths. Would they have captured more? Would they have kept more?
II. The De-valuation of Visuals
There’s a wealth of history and creation tools in our possession at every moment. We’re only a tap away from the world. Today, because everything is so accessible, we take a great deal for granted. Visual documents (ie. photos / videos) are being de-valued at an alarming rate because of social platforms. Instagram stories’ 24-hour lifespan. TikTok's that are 10-seconds long. Facebook posts that are only ever read once before we keep scrolling.
We create too much and too often for it to be genuinely meaningful. I'm not suggesting we limit what we capture; rather, we should concentrate on why. We’ve all heard some kind of variation of “content is king”. It runs the internet. Quantity over quality. As someone who has dived into the “content headspace”, all I can say is it’s a deeply unfulfilling loop. If we want our creations to be meaningful then we need to give them the deserved respect.
III. Be Real
There’s an app I’ve been using since September 2022, BeReal. I know I know, another social app to dive into. But the simplicity of it has captured my attention. It's not curated—it can't be curated. And it can't be pretty. It's about what you're doing at that point in time.
Everyone receives a simultaneous notification to take a photo on your phone, once per day. To capture the moment—to “Be Real”. It snaps a photo with the front and rear cameras and posts it. Occasionally you'll get lucky and be doing something intriguing, but most of the time you're just working or going about your daily business.
These are the fascinating, authentic pictures. The real ones. They are not unduly staged or posed. And if they are, the aim is lost. Some could call these the Ugly Photos. But they're the accurate portrayal of what's going on. No filters, no edits, no beautiful lighting or landscapes—just an honest record of the moment.
It’s refreshing to see and partake in these photos daily. Where we see the constant flow of “OMG that’s amazing, where was this taken??? I wish I was in Europe!!” Seeing individuals "ordinarily" sitting at their desks is quite grounding and actually suppresses unpleasant feelings such as jealously, FOMO, or envy—just some of the plethora of emotions that social media can boil.
This is not so much a promotion for yet another social app, but more to embrace those mundane moments. It’s just your day-to-day. What does your desk look like today? What about the residential block you’ve traversed a thousand times? Perhaps journal a brief entry about what your day was like. Those Ugly Days where nothing remarkable occurs, but you get another trip around the sun.
IV. Perspective
It's actually quite poetic in a way. We might not always have a beautiful sunset or be working on some fascinating and complex project, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the beauty in our everyday lives. From time to time we should remember to embrace, document and savour these moments, because they contribute to the magnificence of other, greater moments.
Being able to look back on mundane moments and appreciate them shows that you are practising mindfulness, a skill that's becoming increasingly rare. It's also a reminder that it doesn't always have to be exciting and that the beauty is often in the everyday, ordinary moments.
Suppose that life were a perfect sphere. A seamless, unending orb. No matter how it is viewed or orientated, it is always identical and flawless—perfect. But if everything's perfect—nothing is. There’s no imperfection around to be compared with. A balance between the two is needed for everything to fall into perspective.
So we compress the sphere until we've got a flat, two-sided circle. The top side smooth and even—beautiful. The bottom, pressed into the gritty, soiled ground—ugly. And we can only label them as such because one cannot exist without the other.
So whilst we live for those highs, the lows put it all into perspective.
Stay safe, and pass-it-on.
Such a good post.
I've come to dislike all the filters on Instagram as I like to see 'reality'. The world has such beautifully natural colours - why alter them?
Not sure about the front and back thing though... Cheers!
Great article and perspectives!