There is some debate in the world of professional photography about “iPhoneography” and social media platforms like Instagram. The tendency is not to take these phenomena seriously and to deny their existence as "real" photography. Some even lament that, in spite of being “the most photographed generation,” we will be the generation with the least photos left of us. The assumption is that our digital photos will disappear into the ether as the years pass.
So one day I tried an experiment. What would happen if I printed my Instagram photos? I curated photographs and printed each as a 6 x 6-inch archival pigment print. Now able to hold my photographs in hand, I realized that I had been doing on Instagram what photographers, professional and amateur alike, have been doing almost since photography began: taking pictures and weaving together a story –my story, the story of my family, and the story of the places where I live.
And yet here I am again presenting these printed photographs in digital format, online, on a glowing screen. Perhaps digital photography reveals only more strikingly what we already knew about analog photography. Every photograph is a momento mori. And every photograph, like every moment and every memory, will one day pass into the ether.
