The Social Image — what makes a photo work on social media?
By: Jonas Heide Smith
Tags: Social Media Marketing, Photography, Social Media, Museums, Musesocial

Why wouldn’t this “installation shot” of Benedikte Bjerre’s 2020 artwork I DID DID I work? Hopefully, that should be very clear at the end of this article. But first… the footnotes.

What, you may ask, do I presume to mean by “work”? Am I implying there’s some objective measure of social media success that we should all aspire to? Well, no… but also: yes. Now, on your personal accounts, let no one tell you what you can or cannot do. Maintain an invitation-only profile with darkly abstract shots of your cat’s tail — indeed, let a thousand dimly lit flowers bloom. But those who manage brand accounts (be it for bike stores, NGOs, or public institutions) almost always do so with a purpose, and that purpose is usually to increase awareness of a cause or of the brand itself.

In other words, there’s an overall goal which means that your work can be measured in terms of quality which typically (although perhaps unfairly) translates into engagement or reach. A person’s screenspace is extremely contested and you are competing for his or her attention with the rest of the world. For the competitively inclined that may sound like fun, but it can also be a tough and rather unsentimental business.

Also, am I really implying that social media photography is a genre altogether different from the time-honed art of photography more generally? Absolutely not. The principles of lighting, editing, focus, and composition of course remain the same, but social media — due to their specific context of reception––demand an emphasis on certain photographic characteristics.

The characteristics, I believe, are related to Decodability, Motivation, Spontaneity, Identification, and Nowness and we’ll go through them below.

The context of reception

Very few, probably quite odd, people take to social media to follow brands. Our social curiosity draws us towards people, opinions, emotions and sometimes towards inspiration and escapism. Note the absence of the word marketing on this list and indeed the word branding.

If you go on social media to sell or convince those who care little about you or your product (or who feel they know enough about it or have plenty of alternatives) you are sailing into the wind.

As a rule, social media users are not looking to learn new facts and they certainly don’t log on to to learn what your institution wants per se. Rather, the expectation is of a social space filled with human beings, and if learning is to happen there must be an emotional, human sounding-board.

In the early days of social media, much ink was spilled over how to define these new-fangled platforms. One I always found useful was that of the cocktail party – a place you go only if you find it amusing or rewarding, i.e. a place you go of your own free will. At this hypothetical cocktail party no-one is required to interact with anyone in particular and certain behaviour types are rewarded with attention: If you have interesting things to say and if you’re a competent conversationalist, i.e. one who masters turn-taking, who knows when to talk and when to listen.

But also one who isn’t blatantly self-promoting, goes into lengthy narratives about things irrelevant to the listener or embarks on long, pre-prepared speeches with little warning. It is these — decidedly human – qualities that brands must master (or, if you will, simulate) to make any headway in this social space.

But equally importantly, social media users browse with acute discrimination. Our feeds are quite full, thank you very much, and the time allotted to the initial estimation of relevance is measured in milliseconds. It’s not a painting in a well-lit gallery, it’s not a photo in a book you’ve already deemed worth buying. Rather, it’s an image that must catch the immediate attention of a social animal.

Decodability

This photo of a late night event at the national gallery of Denmark has multiple problems:

Nikon Z6, ƒ/1.8, 24mm, 1/160 sec, ISO 2800.

Technically speaking it’s not unbalanced (i.e. it doesn’t tilt to either side) and nor is it (mostly) out-of-focus. Even the color scheme is relatively pleasant with its purplish hues. But what is it a photo of, exactly? The motif is a mess, which means you won’t easily understand what you’re seeing and, importantly, you won’t know where to start looking. The photo lacks what graphical designers might call a visual hierarchy; a starting point for your eye.

In photography a visual hierarchy is usually established through simplification (removing extraneous objects, either before or after the shot), lighting (making sure the central element is lit up), depth-of-field (placing the central element in focus and less important elements out of focus), or composition (placing central elements in positions that naturally — or by convention–attracts the eye). Let’s look at a few examples.

Nikon Z6, ƒ/2.5, 85.0 mm, 1/1250 sec, ISO 100.

In this almost minimalist shot, the focus is clearly on the pastry, for many reasons:

There are very few competing elements

The server’s arms almost form an arrow pointing to the plate

The plate and pastry light up as a glowing warm object in a generally cool image (this effect was enhanced in editing)

The pastry is on the plane of focus and there’s a relatively shallow depth-of-field (the server’s left hand is noticeably out-of-focus).

The pastry is placed on (or close to) an intersection of frames in the well-known rule-of-thirds grid

Nikon D800, ƒ/5.0, 24mm, 0.3 sec, ISO 200.

In the same vein, the highly selective lighting here serves to strongly highlight the sculpture slightly right of center (and to blur a large number of elements that might have made for a confusing image). Meanwhile color and composition singles out the photographer placed almost dead center. The angle of the camera and the direction of the gaze of the sculpture (placed along a line in the rule-of-thirds) creates a strong double focus.

Nikon D800, ƒ/9.0, 24mm, 1/320 sec, ISO 100.

Here, the two foreground figures are placed in a rule-of-thirds intersection. But more importantly, the curving path leads the eye towards the museum entrance – a pull enhanced by the direction of all three walking figures.

There’s no creative lighting or strong editing here but the image is nevertheless very easy to decode (if one were to make a slight edit, it might be to remove the three short barrier sticks on the path – they arguably block the implied direction of the walkers).