Doing It For The Gram

If you didn't take a picture were you really there? Be honest with me here, if you forgot your phone would you feel like the event, trip or experience was really worth it?

Image Credits: The Observer

Standing shoulder to shoulder in crowds of people wondering if you'll ever get the chance to see the tourist attraction you have travelled half way across the world for. Elbows digging into your sides, every time the person standing behind you speaks you can feel their breathe on your back (Ew!). Fast forward 50 minutes and you finally make it to the front of the line. Now all that is stood between you and the attraction is a group of friends. Jumping from one position to the next about 50 times while trying to fit about 8 of them into the frame of a camera being held on the end of a selfie stick by the smallest person in the group; pushing so hard to make it into the frame they don't even notice pushing someone else out. Ok maybe I'm over exaggerating slightly. But one thing I’m not being dramatic about is the fact that nearly every single person that waits in these lines are just waiting for one thing… to get their picture taken.

Something I have been trying to do a lot more recently is to live in the moment and stop wishing my life away by dreaming of my future too much. Now don’t get me wrong I am the absolute worst for taking lots of pictures to make sure I get the exact one that is acceptable enough to make it onto the gram. But should we really be so focused on taking pictures that much that we stand in crowds for hours on end to see the beauty of some ancient architecture and sought of masterpieces to turn our backs on it as soon as we arrive? We go to restaurants solely because they are defined as 'insta worthy' rather than because they offer a great menu.

This is where the problem arises. When the chase to get the perfect photo becomes the experience instead of taking the picture to remember the experience. If we don’t take a step back and remember the purpose of our trip the goal sways and it ends up being more about taking the selfie with the the barbie car than visiting magnetic island (This was one of my adventures last year where I took 100 pictures in one day- all for the sole purpose of finding the 'perfect' picture to post on the gram).

“The chase to get the perfect photo becomes the experience instead of taking the picture to remember the experience”

So why do we do it?

It’s not all about convincing others that we have the perfect life and showcasing all these wonderful places we have visited. It’s about being able to look back on these pictures and remember how amazing that specific moment was.

But is that really how it works? In reality we have hundreds of people pushing against us as we battled to reach the front of the line. When we finally get there, we turn our back to get the perfect picture and the few times when we are actually facing the masterpiece we are directing our friend behind the camera on how to get the best angle of us ‘admiring’ the view. However, I’m not saying we aren’t enjoying ourselves. From my own experiences I know looking back I have had the most amazing and perfect adventures, but I think remembering to put our phones away and take it all in is just as important as getting the picture, so that when we look back we get to remember those peaceful moments where we appreciated the world and all the wonders of it.

The thing is with a lot of our focus being on the pictures we take; we often miss out on experiences. There are no filter’s in real life. We only get to live the moment exactly how it is presented to us. This means riding through Venice on a gondola in the pouring rain. Walking for hours around Copenhagen to find the best Danish pastry shop, with crumbs all over your face. Climbing a mountain in the freezing cold. Going to a concert and watching it live instead of through your phone screen as you record every single song. It means being so tired because you’ve gotten up super early every day for the 3 days of your short city break to be sure not to miss anything. With these things, these are the reality and more likely than not, the moments you actually remember.

When I look back on my life in 10, 20, 50 or however many years from now one thing I know that I won’t be saying is ‘I wish my Instagram had more likes’. I want to look at a picture and have all these memories that come flooding back that I didn't take a picture of and then share those with my family.

There has been many times I have visited somewhere and gave up standing in crowds of people to take a picture, instead just held my phone as high as I can above my head and zoom in to get a blurry view. I've waited so long in a restaurant for my dinner to arrive that by the time its on the table I'm so hungry I forget to take a picture until halfway through the meal. These pictures come with their own stories of my experience. At the end of the day, no matter what the picture looks like, you were there.

I’m not saying let’s stop taking pictures all together, not at all. I’m saying let’s try to stop taking pictures solely for the purpose of social media and start living in the moment. At the end of the day whether you take 1000 pictures or 1, you were there. And that’s all that matters.