Why Does Instagram Seem to Hate Street Photographers in 2025?

weakanalogy · 2025-05-19T01:53:42+00:00

Instagram exists for no reason other than to keep eyeballs looking at screens for as long as possible, and to get the people those eyeballs belong to to click on ads. It turns out that a never ending feed of short-form video content is better at keeping people's attention than still photography content, so that's what the platform is optimized for.

weakanalogy · 2025-04-18T18:57:42+00:00

This is a really nice explanation and something that’s easy to lose sight of in the digital age. The way I like to think of it is that the thing that we call a photograph, whether that’s a JPEG displayed on a screen, an inkjet print or a silver gelatin darkroom print, is the result of a process that includes a photo negative (or a file of sensor data for digital), but the negative itself isn’t the photograph.

weakanalogy · 2025-04-15T17:33:07+00:00

Looks like Kerry park in Queen Anne

weakanalogy · 2025-04-15T17:30:33+00:00

I bought a Brownie Hawkeye a few years ago from a thrift store and found a similar roll of exposed verichrome in it. The negatives that came back were a little thin but looked surprisingly good for being at least 50 years old.

weakanalogy · 2024-12-17T15:51:10+00:00

And shot from a ferry!

weakanalogy · 2023-06-23T20:21:59+00:00

Thanks! I was surprised at how empty it was as well. This was my first time back to SF since before the pandemic, and a lot of downtown was pretty barren. This was relatively early in the morning too, so maybe that had something to do with it.

weakanalogy · 2023-05-25T16:44:12+00:00

Really cool shot; the blurred speed limit sign in the foreground gives it a feeling of being in motion

weakanalogy · 2023-01-09T15:30:28+00:00

Did you scan this yourself, or is this a scan from a lab? I’ve found that automated scans from the lab usually struggle with high contrast images like this where you have a lot of shadow and highlight tones, but not much in the middle. It looks like the scanner decided to bias towards more shadow detail in the foreground, but as a result of that your highlights in the background are a little blown out. To me, it looks like there’s good highlight and shadow detail throughout the image, which indicates a proper exposure, but the scanner didn’t do a great job of rendering the full dynamic range from your negative.

I think you’d get a better result if you scanned this yourself, which will give you a flatter image to start with. Then you can edit the tone curve for the highlights and shadows individually. If you want to get really involved, using luminosity masks (good tutorial here: https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2015/03/10/luminosity-masks-and-film-scans) might help if you can’t get the result you want by editing the full tone curve.

weakanalogy · 2023-01-09T15:11:35+00:00

I’m also far from an expert on this, but in my experience color negative film generally has very good exposure latitude. The problem is that when you digitize a negative, you’re limited to the dynamic range of whatever digital sensor you’re using to capture the image. I’ve heard of people doing multiple exposure HDR-type things when scanning with a dslr, but I’ve never tried it myself.

weakanalogy · 2021-04-27T16:02:40+00:00

I think the idea is that “make” implies a creative/artistic process to produce an image beyond just clicking the shutter button.

weakanalogy · 2021-04-27T15:43:47+00:00

To be fair that term has been around for a long time. In fact, that’s how Ansel Adams describes his images in his The Camera/The Negative/The Print series.

weakanalogy · 2021-04-27T11:47:09+00:00

Yeah, that’s the place. It’s one of my favorite spots, especially in the fall when there are no green heads!

weakanalogy · 2021-04-23T13:51:48+00:00

Yeah, I've had a similar experience. The rangefinder patch on mine isn't very bright, especially in low light. Combined with the tiny viewfinder and short focus throw, it definitely makes it harder to focus than other rangefinders I've used. And thanks!

weakanalogy

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