I tried to implement my project in a few different ways. My idea was to show the picture of a picture, what was behind the camera. I posted mainly to Instagram, a photo platform where it would be a bit weird to show what goes on behind the scenes when what is usually shown is the final product. I commented on the posts like normal. I posted my first one also to Facebook to see if I could get any reactions from people not following me on Instagram. Since I hadn’t posted to Instagram in a while, I hoped the algorithm would be on my side and post closer to the top of people’s threads than if I had just constantly posting but I don’t really have that much control over it.
Over all, I didn’t get any responses questioning anything or even commenting on them. Most of my friends just liked it and maybe thought I was just being me. Since I noticed this, on the third and final day, I used a different phone in the final one to hopefully get a different response but now I realize I was probably fighting the algorithm and it might now have even shown up in order on people’s timelines. I think Instagram was the right platform but not this Instagram, maybe a past version without the algorithm. Maybe Snapchat would have been the better option for this. Since my account is public, random people can find me and random people that don’t follow me liked some of the photos.
Although this wasn’t as “successful” as I hoped it would be, it has given me ideas for future projects. How many steps back can I take this? How many phones can I get involved into this project? I think asking random people, whether I know them or not, to use their phone to take a picture of my phone or vice versa is a performance in itself. I tried not to explain what I was doing but they seemed interested in it once they saw me snap the picture. I think I would like to continue this series and try different ways of showing the weird perspective of taking pictures for social media.