We know the temptation this summer to take that photo showing where you are, with whom, doing what, and that, at the same time, looks so similar to the photos you yourself have seen on your feed. Here is our top five photos we advise you to avoid if you don’t want yours to be just another in a sea of clone images.
1. What to do with the food
It’s been there so long —through the phone nothing works better than appealing to primal instincts— that there’s little left to do. It’s like photographing a sunset: it will never be bad and never exciting. The plate full? It can be pretty. Empty? It can convey peace. If not, refrain.
2. The landscape and architecture
It’s an irreproachable impulse: to reflect the environment where we are resting or share the place we are discovering. But remember the old maxim: suggest rather than show. More than a cluttered photo full of elements, isolate one or two. The ones that are better lit, for example.
3. Feet at the shore
The best posts are those that suggest without fully showing. But the photographer’s feet caressed by the waves or the photo at the top of the mountain are so overdone and suggest so little in reality (a swim? a walk? solitude?) that they have become generic. Is there a greater antonym of beautiful than generic?
Read more The mystery of Muse: if almost no one likes them, who fills their concerts?
4. Group photo, identical people
The impulse for group portraits is understandable: it’s so hard to gather so many people in one moment and place… But can you see it? If we only see the group posing, we won’t know what story is summarized. Worse: if we only see men with similar physiques, we will understand that what is being celebrated is the similarity. There is no good option.
5. The cryptic photo
A blurry hand on what seems to be a dance floor, the fluorescent light illuminating a no-place, a piece of food stuck on the fork… This style is like long hair on men: it suits many under 30 well, not so much older ones. And if you keep it after 50, it becomes your whole identity.
Read more Germany advances in its goal of becoming a major arms power in the face of the Russian threat
