On the 5th of August in 2020, Instagram introduced the Reels feature to its platform. A way to experience short but entertaining videos from creators and basically anyone who existed and used the platform. Since then, the popularity of reels has taken over Instagram and it basically seems that our beloved photo-sharing gram has become a branch of Tik-Tok wiht most people creating content for the big T and second sharing on Insta.
In all of this, it seems photographers have it worse. With the all powerful algorithm in favour of reels and trending sounds, it seems that photographers have little choice in the matter and have to join the band wagon so their content is visible to many or risk the chance that the Al-G Rhythm (Get it? That’s a space jam reference) would relegate their content o the back of the Serververse. To understand photographers’ thoughts on this, I reached out to a couple of photographers on Instagram to share their genuine feelings on the development.
Kode Blacc (kodeblacc_studio)
There’s days when I’m lost on the idea of what Instagram is turning into. Honestly, I think Instagram is trying to do too much with hopes that it all sticks. Early on, it was 15 second videos like Vine, then they introduced 24 hour stories like Snapchat, IGTV is a discount version of YouTube, the save post icon offers Pinterest vibes and obviously, Reels are just Tik-Tok videos for those on and not on the actual Tik-Tok platform. The similarities keep piling up making Instagram more of a convergence platform than the photo sharing platform that it was originally designed to be everything. While I understand evolution of purpose and doing what’s best for business, I think it’s dumb trying to turn everybody into video content creators by pushing mostly video content.
David Ifaola (picturesbyhanniff)
Personally, I feel that a good amount of photographers are not interested in creating video content and in my case, unless I’m filming content for my YouTube channel (click here to check that out), I don’t like put myself in front of the camera. Currently, all the reels that I’ve begrudgingly created don’t feature my face in them. Finally, I feel the entire process is forced and forces photographers who’d rather dedicate their entire time to creating images to split their time, energy and focus between between creating images and videos centered around those images.
Solomon David (_solomondavid)
I don’t like it. It makes no sense to me, and I can’t/won’t pretend like it does. To have to publish videos just to stay relevant on a platform that was primarily built for images eludes me but the platform is first and foremost a profit driven initiative so they’ll definitely always do what’s best for business but it doesn’t seat well with me as a user and I don’t think I’ll be taking advantage of the feature anytime soon.
