They Killed Photos. Or Did They?

I miss the good old days.

The days when you didn't need to be a video editor.

The days when you didn't need to constantly find new trends to follow.

The days when you didn't need to have a narrative for every single post.

You know, the days before TikTok shook up the world with short form video and killed photos on social media.

At my core, I'm a photographer.

I've always been the guy taking my big ass camera everywhere I go, documenting everything. My photo style is simplistic. I like to play with negative and positive space.

I want to highlight the subject in a way that is free of distraction and clutter. This is true for cars, people, pets, or whatever I'm shooting.

I adjust the depth of field, which affects how blurry the background is, depending on the situation.

I use a wide-open aperture (large opening in the lens) if I want only the subject to be in focus, with everything else blurry. Or, I use a small aperture (small opening in the lens) if I want everything to be in focus.

Photography is one of those skills that is fundamental to content creation.

It allows you to see the world differently. It forces you to figure out how to tell a story from the environment you are in. You crop out everything you don’t want to see, finding a sliver of beauty.

Whether you are shooting cars, kids, pets, or sports, it can allow you to create images that tell stories.

That’s what Instagram used to be for. It was for photographers to show off their work. That was until short-form video became the big thing…

I gained my first 15,000 followers posting only photos. Then, everything changed. Photos didn’t get reach anymore. I get it, though. A photo is far less engaging than a video. So, that became the priority on social media.

Now, almost all of my images stay locked away in folders on my computer. A select few get printed and hung in my house, but I have no real way to showcase that side of my creativity anymore.

But I was scrolling Instagram and noticed something interesting.

In the Reels tab, I ended up on a post that I thought was frozen. Music was playing but the image didn’t move, which was weird. So, I kept scrolling.

It kept happening over and over again though. Was it my internet connection? Nope.

Then I realized something. Photos are being shown in the Reels feed now, but only when they have music added to them.

And they had crazy amounts of likes and comments. Huh? Why?

This went against all the logic we just talked about.

But I think it's working because it’s a pattern interrupt. Showing a static image breaks the constant feed of video and draws your attention in.

Kind of like a big room full of people getting quiet all of a sudden. You notice a baseline change in the environment. It makes you pay attention.

This approach seems to work particularly well if you post a carousel, which is just a series of photos that people flip through.

The more photos you add, the more time viewers will spend on the post, which drives up engagement.

This signals to Instagram to show it to more people. I can't find anyone talking about this on the internet right now, but my hunch is that this is a way for all of us to post photos and get huge views similar to reels.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about (note that music will only play inside the app on your phone).

My challenge to you is to go back and find some of your best photos and post them as a carousel with some music added to it. Test it out and see what happens. Keep an eye out for this style of post and see if you can learn from others.

Catch you later,

Sam “is always behind the camera” Webster

P.S. The full automotive content creation course I’ve been building is pretty much ready to go. I’m going to have a few people go through it to help me work out any bugs first. But it’s 98% done! I’m so pumped on it and hope you will be too.

P.P.S. You’ll get access to all the photo filter presets I’ve made over the years inside the course too. There are 33 of them to be exact. This way, you can step up your photo game and create professional-level photos with ease. For Free.

More to come soon.