Why I went back to Instagram

I left Instagram after they were purchased by Facebook, on the eve of the big Terms of Service update where they introduced the idea of taking and using people’s images for whatever they wanted without offering any compensation to the user. I just hate that on principle.

That was close to two years ago. January 15th, 2013 to be exact. I posted the below image and let people know I was leaving.

I rejoined Instagram about 3 weeks ago and I thought I should explain my reasons.

First, I love the Instagram service. I’ve never been a huge fan of twitter but from the very beginning I was infatuated with Instagram. I’m a visual artist and I shoot pictures nearly everyday. Instagram is a fantastic outlet for sharing my particular worldview. The user base is very engaged and obviously the feedback and comments are very validating.

Second, it has exploded in popularity to such an extant that it can’t be ignored. From the perspective that I like to get paid to take pictures, there really isn’t a better place to be active on social media.

Third, I’m interested in interacting with my client base and reaching potential workshop students.

Fourth, many of my friends are active on there and I wanted to keep up with their pictures.

Fifth, I couldn’t find any service I liked better. I tried just posting on twitter, I tried flickr’s offering, I tried using only tumblr, I tried posting on my blog, I just didn’t like how any of that was working.

So in order to come back to Instagram I had to make a compromise. That compromise was that I would watermark every image with my website URL. This solves a few issues, mainly, it discourages anyone from using my images by downloading them from Instagram, and if they like the image enough to use it anyway, at least my website will get some exposure. If someone wants to contact me to purchase rights to the full image, they have no question about where to get it.

I hate the watermark but it’s the only way I felt comfortable coming back and uploading images to Instagram.

So that’s my reasoning. What do you think of Instagram? Oh and you can follow me at www.instagram.com/kendrick.disch