I'm relatively artistic, or at least I try to be, and it's one of the few personality traits which I've willingly built upon over the years. Perhaps my inborn perfectionism regarding aesthetics does play a pretty huge role in this, but since I was rather young, maybe around 12, I've cared a lot about making nice graphics for the Internet, organising web pages to look beautifully simple or sophisticated, or just creating aesthetically-pleasing things in general – all of this at a point in time when most of my friends couldn't care less about anything related to art & design (many of them still don't). I remember being completely secure in this particular interest of mine throughout secondary school and in being the "cool" one who knows how to code and design graphics, and I believed it to be one of the very few redeeming talents I have. However, as times changed and I found myself meddling around with codes and Photoshop less, I directed my artistic values into other pursuits such as photography, sketching and illustration, and that's also when others' perceptions toward my interests, especially photography, kinda changed.
I see no point in keeping the things I created for myself without sharing them, especially when I feel it looks good and deserves to be appreciated, but it irks me to no end sometimes, how so many of my friends just fail to get it. When it comes to photography and Instagram, for example, my feed would be primarily dominated by photos of people and photo collages of MORE people, or poorly taken or edited photos with the sole aim of letting others know what they were doing without at least trying to make the photo look more presentable. Don't get me wrong, though - I have no problems with these kinds of users, but the hitch is that they literally make up 90% of those I know in real life who also use Instagram, and that literally leaves me in one corner, genuinely caring about how I can go about taking better photos and feeling mildly frustrated over why so little of the people I know actually care about making their photos look good, or to put it simply, contributing to the 'mobile photography community'.
Of course, I don't expect my friends to magically change the way they take photos, or have the instinct to explore new approaches towards photography, just because I don't know enough people in real life who actively foster my creativity. Besides, chances are they won't be able to even if they tried, and that is completely OK by me. But what kinda irritates me is that some of these friends who recognise my artistic tendencies go on to make light remarks and jokes about it. I guess it would be easy for one to tell me to stop being so butt-hurt over such trivial issues upon reading this, so I shall make it plain and clear here that photography is something that I'm seriously interested in, and that in my eyes, it deserves way more appreciation than the occasional teasing and jabbing over why I take photos in a certain way or try so hard to achieve a certain style. Unfortunately, some people have obviously failed to respect that. Take one of those people for example, who, after knowing about my Instagram account, started pointing fingers at random things and telling me to 'take a ~hipster photo~ of it', or another one, who, upon knowing that I enjoy sharing photos, went on to make jokes which wrongfully suggest that I'm pointlessly addicted to Instagram ("Hey that pole looks nice why don't you go Instagram it or something?").
Granted, with the advent of social media and its new ways of sharing photography, one is bound to be caught in situations like these if he fails to build or join a like-minded community where he can share his photos without being dismissed as too 'artsy' and inaccessible. Photography is no longer as exclusive as it was just a few years ago, and today, in order to share photography as an art form and be noticed, one has to simply launch it to a huge audience of which probably more than half does not know how to appreciate it. As of now, I'm unfortunately caught between the pros and those who use social media simply to honestly share their lives, and I'm likely to remain that way if I intend to stop at the level of an amateur photographer... sadly.
In the end, I guess it all boils down to mutual respect. I love using photography to express my creativity, and I care about making my photos look nice when it may be something completely unimportant to the person right across the street. However, I don't intend to pursue photography professionally, or at least I haven't quite hit the skill level to become a pro. I guess it's this point where one unabashedly pursues his interest even though he might not be extremely good at it that he is most vulnerable. Why go out of the way to post something so ~artsy~ and ~hipster~, they would say, when you could just share normal photos and photo collages like 90% of the other people you know who treat Instagram like they used to treat Facebook? But you know, I'd rather not conform in this way, because I'm doing something I believe in and feel strongly about. And just like how I respect the way you present yourself on social media, demanding the same kind of respect is already the least I can do.
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