Death of Instagram

This week I will be closing my Instagram account for several reasons. First and foremost, I hate all things Facebook and know that this app will change radically next month (ads, privacy issues, selling of photographs, etc.) and I don't want to be a part of it. Secondly, I was spending too much time on it and neglecting this forum. One of the reasons why I liked Instagram is that for once in my life, it was acceptable to take casual nonart photographs. I am not a documentary photographer and I used Instagram as a way to discover what I could be photographing in that manner if I chose it (granted my life could be summed up as cats, food, art and the road trip).

Here are some of my favorite images from the year and one week I incessantly checked and downloaded images with that app. They aren't extraordinary, merely simple documentations of the last year. I will miss Instagram but it's time to move on to other things (like Emoji art... ahem... coming soon).

First photograph posted of Button in the studio (December 2011)

 First day of class - reflection in James Luckett's photograph (January 2012)

Columbus, Ohio on a bitterly cold day (January 2012)

 Globes in my office (February 2012)

Human loitering shield, Los Angeles (February 2012)

The Strand Bookstore (March 2012)

Self-portrait at the copystand (April 2012)

Nicole Pancini's BFA Thesis show (May 2012)

Oatmeal surprising me while in the kitchen (June 2012)

My favorite character in Twin Peaks was always the Log Lady, Portland, Maine (August 2012)

Maura Jasper's weather book that I used to own as a kid (October 2012)

James Luckett at the Cincinnati Museum of Art (October 2012)

Paintbrush in Jennifer Halvorson's Office (October 2012)

Mark Perretta setting the dance floor on fire (Thanksgiving 2012)

Partial $1 bill I stuck to my car to photograph, Indianapolis (December 2012)

Oatmeal under the lamp (December 2012)

Money Money Money

I found this in the parking lot at the Post Office today: a $1 bill from 2006.



A few hours later I opened a letter from my mom to discover this gift from my grandmother arriving 3 decades later:



The two bills were significantly older.



I still carry this $2 bill around in my wallet that I found at the motel in Clemson, South Carolina in the fall of 2010:



Needless to say, money is on my mind.


Will Steacy, Washington, Rip, 2011


Abelardo Morell, $4 Million, 2006


Hans Peter Feldmann's 100,000 $1 bills, 2011


Art Guys, United States of America, 1994


William Powhida, Griftopia, 2011

$ $ $

Dan Graham, Figurative, 1965

Last year I was too scared to add up all the money I spent on the earthworks trip. My loss for not deducting it but I just didn't want to know. This year (because there is more documentation with these cakes than any other project I've ever done), I kept track. This is prior to printing & presentation.

YIKES.

$3775.43

but.... every once in awhile you have to take the chance.