Social Media Measures Attention, not Depth

This week  I’ve been spending time with the work of Richard Serra.

Not just looking at his sculptures, but trying to understand the person behind them.

I first encountered his work in the Netherlands, then again in Denmark. Reading more about his life, I discovered that his mother encouraged him to draw, while his father worked in a shipyard. It made me wonder how much those early experiences shaped the way he saw weight, steel, space and scale.

It reminded me that our creative lives begin long before we ever pick up a camera.

They’re built in layers.

The first layer might be a parent who encouraged us to notice, or perhaps one who didn’t.

Then come the layers of school, friends, books, films, music, heartbreak, holidays, conversations, nature, work, grief, joy and the thousands of ordinary moments that quietly shape our eye.

Like paint on a canvas, the earliest layers are often hidden.

But they’re still there.

Every photograph we make carries traces of them.

Which is why I’ve started questioning something.

How can years of becoming be outweighed by a number on a screen?

How can a photograph born from a lifetime of experiences suddenly feel worthless because it wasn’t liked, shared or saved enough?

It can’t.

Social media measures attention.

It doesn’t measure depth.

It doesn’t know the story behind why you stopped for that patch of rust, that shaft of light or that abandoned piece of corrugated tin.

It doesn’t know what that photograph meant to you.

Your way of seeing didn’t begin when you opened Instagram....

It began years earlier

Long before anyone else was watching

Mel