“It had become more than a university project – I was in it to ask questions about what I do.”
My guest this week is Carolyn Stritch, aka The Slow Traveler. She’s a freelance photographer based in the North of England, although her account often depicts dreamy locations from idyllic destinations around the world. She might seem to be living the Instagram dream life, an impression she’s aware of, and wanted to question a little in a recent ‘self sabotage’ project she staged on her 200k+ Instagram account. I called her up to try and understand more about her motivations, what she learned from it and more about her photography work away from the ‘gram.
Carolyn’s Blog |Instagram|Twitter
Things we talk about in this episode:
- Why Carolyn sabotaged her own Instagram account
- Appropriation, photoshop and “beautifying” apps
- Photoshop as a digital darkroom
- the responsibility of content creators to be aware of our messages
- Deepfakes
- Creating a highlight reel of our lives on Instagram, and leaving out the bad sides
- Carolyn’s work reflecting social housing and socio-economic issues
- Having diverse creative focuses that don’t have to match up
- Making a living from Instagram and influencer marketing
- Creating content specifically for Instagram
Links we mention in this episode:
- Northern Centre of Photography
- Selfie by Will Storr (affiliate link)
- FaceApp
- Carolyn’s blog post about her hack
- The Esalen Institute
- Carolyn’s three Instagram posts for the hack –one, two, three.
- Episode 26 with Hadley Freeman
- Rogue One’s Carrie Fisher
- Abraham Lincoln’s pieced/faked photograph
- Dada appropriation art
