Detoxing Your Brain From Online Photography in Just 9 Minutes
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What do you think is the most valuable resource today?
Is it money? Money pays for security and allows you to do a lot of stuff.
Is it time? Time is the one finite thing we have, that we can’t get more of.
Or…is it actually attention?
Because what we pay attention to dictates how we spend our time and money.
Those who’ve got a good handle on their attention are focused and steadily working towards bigger goals, while those who don’t live out their days doomscrolling.
Many companies have long figured this out, that attention is the true finite modern resource, and it controls everything from how they make money to how we live less fulfilled lives.
By controlling people’s attention, you control how they think, and therefore what they do and what they buy.
If we want to achieve our goals, live more fulfilled lives, and stop the brainrot it all comes from taking back control of our attention.
Which could lead to many beneficial things like improving our photography and taking the photos we’ve always dreamed/wanted to.
Let’s detox our brains.
Doomscrolling, Slow Photography, and Detoxification
The renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado took nearly 8 years to photograph his project Genesis.
The Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci took more than 14 years to paint.
And the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece, has been in construction for more than 140 years.
The fact of the matter is, art, whether it’s photography, painting, or architecture takes time.
And in a world where we are trained to want things instantaneously, it’s easier and easier to lose patience with our own work.
This is why today’s most common trope is to claim failure as the lack of talent, give up before trying, and blame others and society for a “rigged game”.
But think about it for a second.
How long on average do you think you spend scrolling a day?
An hour? Two hours? Four hours?
And how fast do you think you scroll?
A quick Google search says that people roughly do 6-10 scrolls per minute.
That’s at least one every ten seconds.
When we scroll we are training our reward cycles to want or need that hit at that frequency.
At this point, it’s not an exaggeration to call it an addiction.
Consumption has trained our brains to think things are supposed to be fast and easy.
We get disillusioned when we hear stories of musicians whipping up a banger within 30 minutes.
And we think that’s the way it is or the way it’s supposed to be.
But in actuality the vast majority of artists spend an unreasonable amount of time doing the work.
Sparks or flashes of inspiration come, sure, but not all the time and not always when you want it to.
That’s the hard pill we must swallow if we want to detox our brains from the online world.
Real photography is slow.
You can spend an entire photo session and not get one decent shot.
If you take photos year round and you might only get 1-2 really good shots.
But that’s actually normal for photography - so we must reset our expectations.
It’s said that Salgado took more than 50,000 photos for Genesis, and only 245 made the cut.
Think about that for a second.
If you want to accomplish more or make anything worth making in life, you’re going to have to commit more than one day to it.
And you’re going to have to expect and tolerate failure and failure, over and over, before you get it right.
That’s just how getting better works.
But you can also see that as a good thing.
Because the longer of a timeline you’re willing to commit to something and the better you are at being patient, the more likely you are to succeed.
Contradictory Information, Analysis Paralysis, and Less Doing
Many years ago I stopped watching gear reviews.
Not because I thought I “knew it all”, but rather because they stopped helping me.
All gear reviews did was have me focused on the wrong things, made me want to buy more gear, and didn’t contribute towards making me better.
It’s a continual loop of consumerism that traps photographers.
Acknowledging that, I still make my own gear reviews, in a way that’s less spec based and more experience based, because people like them and it helps grow the channel.
I bring this up to reflect on something important:
Every photographer is different.
I might say I like the x100vi for some specific reason, but that might not apply to your photography or your use case scenario.
When we watch creators we are just hearing their preferences, not necessarily reality.
Meaning everything must be taken with a grain of salt - if not, we’ll end up buying a bunch of stuff we never use.
That much should be common sense.
Ultimately, if we want to find what’s right for us, we must get comfortable sorting through contradictory information - because that’s all online stuff is.
That guy over there may say to never shoot manual - but I shoot fully manual.
That guy over there may say this is the best zoom lens (5 primes in one) - while I’d recommend going out with just one prime.
The tricky thing about photography and life is that two things can be true at the same time, and no one’s completely right.
If you obsess over finding out the best methods, the best gear, the best path, you’ll get caught in a trap of analysis paralysis, always thinking and never doing.
My best cure for this is a phrase I’ve shared with you before:
Use what’s useful to you.
This applies to gear, recommendations, tips, advice, etc.
Try it out, if it works, keep doing it.
If it doesn’t work, stop using it.
Simple right?
This doesn’t mean the advice given to you was wrong, just that it wasn’t right for you specifically at this time.
And that’s okay.
That’s how we filter through all the fluff of the online world, and detox ourselves from it.
Similarly, if we’re confused or overwhelmed, the best thing to do is pick something and start working on it.
Our brains want to make the perfect choice, but…in life there is no perfect choice.
And sitting there thinking about it isn’t going to get us closer to the answer.
We must try something, get feedback from it, and keep doing.
Always prioritize the doing over the thinking and you won’t get stuck overanalyzing.
Less consuming, more creating, as I like to say.
Comparison Traps, Fighting for Likes, and Validation Loops
A few years ago I stood in front of the Outdoor Theatre at Coachella watching Joji perform.
Within just a few years the artist had risen to music stardom.
But before that, many knew him by his internet persona Filthy Frank, which popularized trends like the Harlem Shake.
I wasn’t an avid watcher of his at the time, but I’d seen and heard stories of him leaving YouTube and rebranding.
Looking from the outside, one can clearly see that the online persona he created hurt him.
It worked, made him famous, got a lot of views and likes, but was unsustainable and probably not what you wanted to be 24/7.
Time and time again you’ll see this with many different creators:
Doing things for the audience to get engagement at one’s own expense.
It’s like a glorified modern version of “dance monkey dance”.
They are “being forced to live up in private who they say they are in public”.
And that kills people mentally.
Now, you or I might not be on the same timeline as these other creators - maybe we just want to take pictures, live a simple life, whatever.
But there’s still a lot we can learn from this, because everything we do will have some outside influences, whether it be online or within your own social circle.
We compare ourselves all the time - and we might feel lost because of it.
The temptation could be to play a character like Filthy Frank.
Be the person we think people would like to get us the social acceptance we think we need.
Or we could just be ourselves.
Which would give us that internal peace and reward at the expense of some people not liking us.
The choice sounds obvious, but so many people struggle with this.
They take photos specifically to get more likes on Instagram.
They make and pursue projects they’re not really interested in.
And they continue to chase “what’s going to do well”.
Because they’re scared of doing the thing they really want to do and it not working out.
“It’s okay if I fail at something I didn’t care about. But what if I made something I really wanted to make - and no one liked it?
Wouldn’t that hurt way more?”
That’s not wrong, it probably would.
But the reality is, the best person we can play is ourselves.
It’s more genuine, more unique, and way more interesting (whether we think so or not).
And we don’t have to act or pretend like we’re someone else, so it’s less draining.
Furthermore, when we focus on creating the thing we’re actually invested in, interested in, and care about, the work itself is better.
You don’t need to do what’s trending or what everyone else is interested in, if you’re not.
Doubling down on what you think is cool or what you want to make will lead to more fulfillment and better results.
And it leaves something we can look back on and be proud of, rather than ashamed or embarassed of.
It’s then we can live up in public who we are in private, and that’s much easier.
Make what you want to make and be genuine - it’s the only way.
So that’s how we detox our brains from online photography.
I think those were the heavy hitters in terms of what interferes with our photography growth and life - but leave some tips in the YouTube comments if you have more.
Share this with a friend who needs to read this, and if you want to learn more about improving your photography, shoot more and stress less, check out Photography Systems.
It’s there we learn all about the psychology and process of improving.
If you found this useful, I think you’ll find that useful.
Thanks for reading, happy shooting.
