Last week, I was in Chattanooga, TN for some work stuff. (You can scroll down to this week’s video to see more on that)
I was running errands and I drove past this bench in front of a Waffle House, and thought it was funny, so I snapped a photo of it with my phone. (I didn’t have any other camera on me.)
Good enough for an Instagram story.
Eventually, it ate at me enough that I went back to get a Polaroid of it. So I drove back, jumped into the middle of the road to get the angle I wanted with my Polaroid I-2, and BOOM. Got the best version of this shot possible I think.
Listen, we all know that as a photographer in 2024, one has to diversify. A big way many of you support me is by reading these Dispatches, watching my videos, and/or commenting or liking from time to time. I’m incredibly thankful for that. More than you know.
That said, the ULTIMATE show of support to my work is by heading to my website and purchasing a print. So…I’ve made Waffle Bench available for purchase here!
Don’t worry, this Dispatch isn’t just an ad for an extremely cool print. In its own weird way, Waffle Bench has managed to provoke thought. A thought related to the perceived heaviness that many of us photographers feel surrounding what we make and what we put out there.
LOL Nothing Matters
There’s a big contrast I’ve noticed between how Millennials (such as myself) and Gen Z use social media. (Get ready for some gross generalizations) Millennials tend to look at everything with great anxiety and weight. I think we see everything as a big deal, and we are very risk averse as a generation in many ways.
Gen Z on the other hand, feels like the character of Karl Hungus from The Big Lebowski. “He doesn’t care about anything, he’s a nihilist.”
I’m only half-serious of course. Generational generalizations are the worst kind of analysis, because it’s purely anecdotal and based in overall crotchety-ness.
But, I’m totally accurate on this so stay with me.
Just look at a millennial instagram account vs. a Gen Z instagram account. 9 times out of the 10, the millennial account will be carefully curated and overly staged. The Gen Z account will look like the Instagram version of a Geocities page. The millennial might get very specific with their bio like “Mom, photographer, horse lover, Youtube Personality and Beauty Specialist, Foodie, Adventurer, Etc.” Anyway you get it. Millenials tend to over-craft a story.
The Gen Z bio would be something mind-bending like just the letter "C” or maybe nothing at all. The grid would be full of random snapshots of trash they found on the ground or blurry photos of a character on a Netflix show they are binging. Gen Z instagram accounts are almost like their own form of abstract art. Then you’d find them on Youtube and discover they have a 500,000 subscriber gaming channel or something like that. And they walk around with $100,000 in their checking account at any given time, and yet…they don’t care. They are totally dead inside regardless.
I’m kidding, I’m kidding. (kind of)
We live in a corporate world, everything is branded and clean. Even the supposed “craft” beer you’re drinking is owned by Anheuser Busch. All stories have been told and over-told. And we’ve absorbed that into our bones (along with microplastics) whether we realize it or not. Corporate branding is the art we all consume more than anything else, so the stories we tell have begun to feel corporate themselves.
We are all just trying to create synergy in everything we do.
I gotta say though, I think Gen Z is on to something. (Not that they are immune to corporate branding. I’m pretty sure many of them are sponsored by Proctor and Gamble. I also hear Blackrock is buying up Gen Z individuals at an alarming rate.) It’s the lack of interest in hand holding everyone along the calm flowing river of “our story”. If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t.
And that’s okay.
They understand the fact that no one cares. Nothing matters.
The Imaginary Weight
I think the reason many photographers develop knee problems is from the weight they are carrying around at all times. Everything is a tough decision from how to adjust the greens in an image to how one should crop it to what paper to print it on to how to share it on social media to is someone going to be able to screenshot and steal this so I lose tens of dollars? Is someone going to point out that this was edited and the colors are inaccurate to the scene?? Maybe I should have shot it vertically so it can take up more space in the feed? What time should I post? Blah Blah Blah Blah.
No one cares.
Truly. No one is keeping tabs. No one is fact-checking. You put something out and people see it for a millisecond and then they move on.
Most of the decisions photographers lose their minds over are not serious or worth freaking out about.
For instance, I had a flare up this week: I’ve started to feel like color grading my Youtube videos is a waste of time and adds nothing. So, this week, I didn’t color grade my footage. Just shot video straight out of the camera. No LOG or whatever, just default. I agonized over it slightly until I remembered…No one has me under a microscope (and if they do, they are super weird), and chances are, no one will notice that I took an extra hour to slightly change the color of my footage. In fact, I’d rather spend that extra hour trying to make a more interesting video rather than worry about the micro-aesthetics anyway.
When I care too much about what I’m making, it often becomes the most uninteresting version of itself. When I relax and just put something out that I think is interesting all on its own without millennial levels of manipulation, is when it almost always ends up connecting with people more.
And…that’s why Waffle Bench is such a great image. It just is what it is. No double exposure magic or anything extra. It’s just a Polaroid snapshot of a bench in front of waffle house that made me chuckle.
In fact, you should purchase a print of it, so you can chuckle every time you see it as well.
I guess I lied. This whole Dispatch was an ad after all.
Synergy.
Life on Repeat
I went kind of vloggy for this week’s video, and as I was editing, I felt like I had seen all this footage before. Sure enough, I dug through the archives and discovered that I’ve basically been shooting the same exact videos for the better part of a decade. Almost like my “stuckness” has reached a new level and I’m trapped in some sort of doom loop.
So anyway, here’s this week’s video:
That's an excellent polaroid, by the way.
(Careful, what follows is a hobby horse of mine because I do social media things on the regular for part of my paycheck): I think the generational approaches to social media tell the story of our changing relationship with these platforms.
Millennials still treat it as new. Because for them it was. "Holy crap! I can reach the whole world now! The whole WORLD is here! I need to present myself in the best way possible!"
For Gen Z, it's not new. They grew up with it and they've always seen the difference between how they are, and how people comport themselves online. As a result, they aren't having it. As you say, they can't be bothered.
I think all this is a working trajectory toward authenticity. In other words, I think both approaches are a little incomplete. We're tired of seeing curated influencer nonsense, but sh!t posts don't build any meaningful relationships, either. Authenticity has elements of both: we try to communicate something meaningful and show a little bit of who we are on these severely limiting platforms, but in a way that isn't stuffy or fake or that takes ourselves too seriously. I can't see anyone of any generation turning their noses up at that.
I had no idea the Waffle Bench existed, but now I think I need one for my porch.