I Lost My Instagram Account… and Somehow Photography Survived

Recently, I lost my Instagram account. Years of posts, followers, likes, comments and messages disappeared into whatever mysterious black hole exists somewhere between Meta's servers and its customer service department.

Initially, it felt like a disaster.

Then something rather unexpected happened.

Almost nothing.

I still had my cameras. I still had my photographs. People still wanted to shoot with me. I still wanted to create portraits. The sun continued to rise, Lightroom continued to demand ever more hard-drive space, and Canon did not remotely disable my shutter button.

It made me realise how easily Instagram can become confused with photography itself.

Instagram is useful. It gives me somewhere to show new work, find people I'd like to photograph, stay in contact with models I've worked with and occasionally discover someone interesting enough to inspire a new shoot. Losing all that has certainly been inconvenient.

But that's really all it has been: inconvenient.

The photographs I value most weren't valuable because 327 people pressed a little heart underneath them. They were valuable because the person in front of my camera and I managed to create something we both genuinely liked.

One of the greatest compliments I can receive is still discovering that someone I've photographed has made one of my images their profile picture. No algorithm required.

Perhaps losing Instagram has been a useful reminder that social media should be a tool for photography, not the reason for doing photography.

Followers aren't a portfolio. Likes aren't a critique. Reach isn't artistic merit. And an algorithm deciding that only seventeen people deserve to see something doesn't make the photograph any better or worse.

I'll rebuild an Instagram presence because it's useful and because, apparently, photographers are now legally required to own one.

But losing the old account hasn't changed why I pick up a camera.

I was a photographer before Instagram lost my account, and—much to Instagram's probable disappointment—I'm still one afterwards.