I attended a great night at The Hosptial Club last week, hosted by Getty Images on the topic of ‘How social photography is changing the way brands tell stories’.
They had some good and bad speakers, but overall it was a fascinating interrogation of the emerging trend of mobile photography and how it overlaps into social media.
Here are a few reflections:
A problem with definition
The first speaker @rugfoot used the term iphoneography (admitting that it was a very confused term) to characterise the main topic of the evening. To me this seemed way too narrow and biased for the talk and subject area. Undoubtedly iphones dominate, but this is changing fast. I personally subscribe to the wider term social mobile photography.
Four options to engage using social mobile photography
@rugfoot talked about how brands have four main options to engage using social mobile photography: 1) Cover an event with a mob of Instagrammers 2) Engage super users and seduce them to evangelise the brand 3) Crowdsource images around a promoted hashtag 4) Take the Red Bull approach and pull off a mega event.
What is the legacy of social photography?
@rbanks suggested that his baby daughter will inherit 200k photos from him by the time he dies. Each photo packed with social metadata telling the story of each individual photo in multidimensional ways. Suggesting that a persons legacy will be formed largely by their digital footprint....and interweb ghosts perhaps?
How a photo's DNA transforms when it enters social networks
Photos gain new and trans-formative social properties when they enter the social ecosystem. Likes, comments and shares give new meanings to the images shared. The photographic origin diminishes and becomes part of the new social network of images, tagged and curated by new audiences.
Where is the value in social mobile photography?
@rbanks made the point that user value in social mobile photography is as much about the participation as the original capturing. That is, the act of photography is no longer a predominantly solo act but that it is now a group dynamic. The feeling of capturing a moment shared by many people brings new value to the meaning of photography.
Shaping your personal social narrative
It's not just about photos anymore it's your digital footprint and the associated meta data. It's your legacy. How you curate this legacy is down to the way you 'shape' your own personal narrative in social networks. However, one of the consequences of this is that the obsession with documenting your life means you either miss the moment, live outside of the moment or diminish its significance.
The new rules of image ownership
The sense of ownership of photos is changing with the emergence of social mobile photography. People's don't feel like they 'own' their photos when they are are shared. Photos are now as much owned by the network as they are by their authors.
A statistical overload
Loads of statistics were thrown around in the evening - from 31 billion photos taken every month and 6 billion uploaded to social networks everyday. However, the most authoritative sources I have seen on mobile photography are here and analogue photography here.
All hail The New Aesthetic
Brands are falling over themselves to use the 'perfectly, imperfect' photo aesthetic, a term coined by Getty Images. The authentic, un-constructed, slightly out of focus, sharp cropped, real people shots are the images that brands want to use. Where happy accidents and visual 'errors' evoke a hyper reality. The example of DayOneStories from Prudential was used to illustrate this changing aesthetic.
Message to brands: lets others tell your stories
According to @Tom_Messet brands are rubbish at storytelling and they are better off creating experiences that encourage others to tell their story. You can't orchestrate this, but you can inspire it. It will be interesting to see how the brands manage this delicate balance of harnessing social mobile photography without undoing its very magic.
The burden of editing your social narrative
The user's burden of assembling a personal narrative through social mobile photography was discussed. The pressure of editing and publishing 'live' is both attractive and scary it seems. The fact that we are constantly curating our photographic signature across the social web means we are exposed to the authorship of the people formerly known as the audience.
The evening confirmed my own view that social mobile photography is one of the most disruptive trends in photography since Cartier Bresson gave us the 'decisive moment'. It's unsurprising then that brands want to tap into its democratic and creative influences.
The fact that commentators, photographers and users are all arguing over its significance and the fact that it is actually challenging the meaning of photography itself, suggests that the game really is afoot.
Expect more to come.
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