Instagram used to be a playground for photographers. A place to share work, connect with like-minded creatives, and build an audience. But lately, it feels more like a deathtrap—one where your hard-earned following can vanish overnight, where bad advice spreads like wildfire, and where the platform’s rules make you second-guess your own creative vision.
The Disappearing Act: Losing 1,500 Followers
After a period of inactivity, I watched my follower count drop from 6,541 to 5,089. That’s almost 1,500 people gone. Were they ever real followers? Maybe not. Some were likely bots or inactive accounts that Instagram purged. But the painful part? The ones who stayed aren’t engaging either. They’re watching, scrolling, consuming—but barely interacting.
Instagram is ruthless to anyone who doesn’t feed its algorithm daily. Skip a few weeks? You’re invisible. Engagement tanks, reach plummets, and your posts get buried. A following you spent years building can unravel in just a few months.
The 12-Post Myth and Bad Advice from YouTubers
Some “social media gurus” claim that keeping only 12 posts on your feed is the secret to success. The idea? A perfectly curated grid will attract more followers. The reality? It destroys your history.
Imagine following a photographer whose work you love—only to visit their profile and see a handful of random images, with no depth, no archive, no journey. Deleting your older posts in an attempt to game the algorithm doesn’t build an audience; it erases your credibility.
Instagram used to be about storytelling. Now it’s a game of optics, dictated by trends rather than artistry.
Censorship vs. Creativity: The Battle Continues
For photographers working with artistic nude imagery, Instagram is a constant minefield. The platform’s censorship is unpredictable, inconsistent, and downright frustrating. A model’s bare back? Maybe fine. A hand placed strategically over the chest? Banned. Meanwhile, influencers post nearly-identical images in thong bikinis with no issues.
It’s not just about avoiding bans anymore—it’s about shaping creativity around what Instagram allows. The very idea that a social media app has a say in what can or cannot be shared is absurd. Yet, here we are, adapting ideas, adjusting compositions, and self-censoring in fear of shadowbans or account strikes.
The Silent Peeping Toms
Then there’s the lurking audience—the thousands who follow but never engage. They watch every story, like every third post (just enough to not seem like ghosts), but never comment, never share, never truly interact. It’s a weird, voyeuristic dynamic.
Why follow an artist if you have no intention of engaging? Instagram encourages passive consumption, creating a space where people scroll mindlessly, treating photography like background noise.
The Way Out?So, what’s the alternative? Some photographers are moving to platforms like Vero, where images are displayed in high quality, and engagement feels more authentic. Others are investing more in newsletters and websites—places where they control the audience, not an algorithm.Instagram might not be dead yet, but for many artists, it’s become more of a chore than a creative outlet. And that’s the real deathtrap: when a platform forces you to adapt so much that you lose sight of why you started in the first place.Maybe the best move isn’t to play the Instagram game harder. Maybe it’s to step away and build something that lasts.
