I wasted my life trying to please the Instagram algorithm – I’m so much happier now I’ve stopped

Having built up a portfolio of work I decided to share some of it on websites such as 500px and Photocrowd during my late teens/early 20’s. Getting positive feedback was a real confidence booster for me, but I was always anxious about signing up for Instagram because I knew there would be a lot more eyes on my images.

After a period of putting it off, I finally plucked up the courage to create an account. Admittedly though, I was recommended to do so by my tutors while studying Professional Photography at City of Bristol College, so they gave me the all-important nudge that I needed. I was 22 at the time, just finding my feet on the platform, had no real direction. I posted a mix of my personal work, along with what I produced on my course.

The number of followers I accumulated never mattered to me; it was only when a few of my coursemates mentioned it that I started to take notice. My follower count was around 3000 – 4000, and I hadn’t been using the app for that long. There was no strategy in terms of the type of content I was posting, or how my grid looked, nothing like what it is now.

Then it all changed, it became quantity over quality. ‘You should post 2-3 times a day to boost engagement,’ and ‘post at specific times, especially around 6pm when people are back home from work.’ These are the kinds of things I would be told. It became far too technical and complicated for me; it’s like the fun had been completely erased from using the app due to a new obsession with analytics.

X-T5 · f/6.4 · 1/125s · 50mm · ISO125

…