Kicked Off Instagram AND The Gigabyte Aero 15X

Art Model, Panda ©2017 Terrell Neasley

So, Instagram didn't like my last post. My profile on there does not exist anymore. Can't access my account. Nothing. Just gone. Well, that's their game and as a private entity, they have the right to do just that. And I have every right to say Fuck'em. They have 100% lost my respect, because respect would have been, "Hey we're sorry you feel this way. What can we do to help make your Instagram experience better?" At that point, we can still talk and I get to feel like a citizen consumer of their product. And if we don't reach a conclusive mutual agreement, then OK. Part and go separate ways. No harm. No foul.

But that's not what they did. I was dictated to without the ability to question a thing or even get clarification to better understand. Shadow Banning my images isn't in their Community Guidelines either. I can't work with anybody like that and simply won't. For the future, I'll move on without Instagram in my life and I'm absolutely cool with that. I still have my goals and I will achieve them in a different manner. I'm just getting off that platform earlier than expected. This will give me time to research my options more thoroughly, so I'm good with having that bridge burned.

Moving on...

Art Model, Panda ©2017 Terrell Neasley

Yeah, so I ordered my laptop yesterday. Going with the $2300, 15.6" Gigabyte Aero 15X, with the 6-core i7-8750 processor, 16GB of RAM, half a TB of NVMe SSD, Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU, and a 1080p display. I wanted to wait another week or two for it, but inventory everywhere is low. Other versions/variations of this laptop model suddenly were not available any longer so when I saw this one with a much sooner date of arrival, I jumped. The 15X is the middle version of this model. There's a 15W for $2000 which is the one I wanted. Its the exact specs of the 15X only with a GTX 1060 graphics card. No date on when it gets in...only "soon". Then there's the 15X, but with a 4k display for $2500...mid-July expected delivery for that one. Nope...had to jump on what was available. If the 4k version was what was available, I'd have pulled the trigger on that one.

Art Model, Panda ©2017 Terrell Neasley

The MS Surface Book 2 was less power but still more money. It was a whole grand more money for a lesser processor AND lessor GPU. I didn't need the removable screen. I hated the fulcrum hinge and I just couldn't see that it was a better deal. Its hard to believe the Surface is charging a thousand dollars more...and for what? If it was worth it, I could see it. Maybe it is for you, you should check it out. I need a laptop to edit photos and videos on and I think the Gigabyte Aero 15X best suited my needs.

Now we'll see after I get my hands on it as to whether it was a good decision or not, but I feel good about it. But that won't be for a while yet. I'll definitely be doing a review on it, but I won't have it til sometime late June. Then I'll load it up with my much needed software and get to work. Adobe for sure will get loaded, but what else? I used a ton of plug-ins on my desktop and I'm not looking for the same 'ol, same ol'. Its been years and I'd love to change it up a bit. Capture One, maybe...? I love the fact that its easily upgradeble, but I'll wait til around Christmas to add another 16GB of RAM (2 slots for max 32GB) and another 2TB SSD for a total of 2.5TBs, since there's one more slot for another SSD.

And with that, Papa's gotta get a brand new bag. My current Thinktank Retrospective 30 won't hold a 15.6" laptop. So I'm going with the biggest messenger shoulder bag that gets the job done. I don't need anything that looks like I got a boat load of cameras in it, so I'm sticking with Thinktank again and getting the Urban Disguise 60 v3.0. I'll be doing a review on it as well when I pick it up at B&C Camera in Las Vegas. This along with the Sennheiser AVX and the Osmo Plus will be my main purchases for now. Waiting til the end of the year will be the Mavik Air. Gotta pace myself! The only thing that is also still questionable is the Sigma 20mm f/1.4 E-Mount for Sony lens. There is still no word yet on if it will be available and in stores during my visit back stateside.

Art Model, Panda ©2017 Terrell Neasley

Instagram and the Art Nude

Art Model, Susan ©2013 Terrell Neasley

"Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." Well, that's what they say. Is it true? Hell, naw. When you love something you'd better work your ass of at it or you won't be loving it for long. So the work continues. You get better or you stagnate and if you stagnate you die. So what is it that I love. I love the art nude and I love travel. Its pretty much all I ever want to shoot. Making a living at just that can be challenging. How do you make a living with nudes outside of porn? And there is no shortage of travel photogs out there. In fact, I'd say there is a stark surplus of shooters traveling all over the world and returning with highly interesting imagery.

When I first turned professional after losing my job at the Nevada State Treasurer's Office, I did so after a long deliberation. For the first month I was unemployed, I did absolutely nothing related to job hunting or planning for my future. I enjoyed myself and relaxed. On day 32, I decided I'd turn pro in photo. I had all the gear I needed already and I was definitely good enough. One thing I knew for sure was that I did not want to be like every other photog swinging a lens. So I spent Month 2, five days a week, bending my brain on all the possibilities of what niche I'd carve for myself. By the end of that month, I only needed to begin my work and  execute my plan.

Anonymous Art Model, ©2014 Terrell Neasley 

And so this is where I find myself once again. Travel and Art Nude photography is the WHAT. And that's why I sit here in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala in my "penthouse" apartment that I've been renting for the last 3 months figuring out the HOW. My plan is to use this as a staging point til September and at that time,  I'll be ready to continue my adventure as I fly to Colombia. I should have the rest of the gear I need by then with a plan on execution. One of my considerations deals with platforms and that's where Instagram comes in.

I am so pissed with IG. I can't stand the censorship. Actually, there are a lot of things with which I take issue with them, but for now, lets stick to the censoring of my work. I don't know how some pages get away with it, but my profile is constantly getting censored images taken down and I have no clue as to what Community Guidelines were violated. No clue even which pics were deleted at times. No recourse to understand anything. They don't let you contact them so you can't ask questions. No clue if an algorithm is incorrectly targeting my already censored edits. OR, if an anonymous person is reporting my images and they get deleted without due scrutiny. And apparently, after a quick check, I discovered that some of my images have been SHADOW BANNED! They still appear on my profile page where I can see them, but YOU can not see them. You can check to see your's on INSTAGRAM SHADOW BAN TESTER. So I'm not sure if this is the right platform for me anymore.

Art Model, Samantha ©2010 Terrell Neasley

I can't stand being beholden to someone else's sensibilities on what is obscene or offensive to other viewers. I do my work and my art and believe you, me...I plan to misbehave. Some of my artwork leans towards the explicit and I don't know what to tell you... you can simply not look at it if you don;t like it. I won't be offended. Ergo, I need a new platform to display and exhibit my work. VERO, is a possibility but I still have time to search this out. Maybe I'll keep IG solely for the Travel work. I won't make this call until later this fall.

Instagram is only part of my challenge. I've still got to find favorable venues and platforms that won't limit or censor my work. And that means I have to tap into a demographic that appreciates and purchases my art which leaves me with with the task of finding my real audience. Plenty of people are interested in travel photography, visiting places around the world, and living vicariously through those that do in the form of instant access social media. That demographic is easy. A smaller portion of that demographic is interested in seeing a nipple exposed anywhere near a waterfall. And even less want a full frontal nude body "desecrating", what would have otherwise been appropriate imagery to hang on a family wall. I can be a bit obstinate, I know. Because the easy solution is to just stick to the travel landscape and make everybody happy. And that would be great, but it would come at the cost of my own happiness. I can not do that.

Multiple Art Models, ©2013 Terrell Neasley

So for the time being, I keep shooting. Get my gear. (I'll be ordering my laptop soon!) And keep researching, learning, and planning. I'll make my call this fall.

Finally Getting Down with Instagram

The inside of a chicken bus. On the way to I forget where.

"Technology has eliminated the basement darkroom and the whole notion of photography as an intense labor of love for obsessives and replaced them with a sense of immediacy and instant gratification."

~ Joe McNally

I've been meaning to jump on the Instagram bandwagon for years and simply didn't do it. I was one of those photogs that resisted Instagram in the beginning. I was bent on not getting hung up on every single new social media app that reared its ugly head. But over the years, I began to learn more about Instagram and see some of the benefits. However, meaning to jump on the bandwagon and actually doing it are two different things.

You can now follow me and see my activities at @photoanthems on Instagram. My friend @shmercier, got me to thinking about Instagram differently more than a year ago. I already had it on my mind to set up an account, but I didn't see it as anything more than a FB alternative/complement. She doesn't use Facebook at all and connects with all her friends via Instagram instead. Her reasoning intrigued me at a time when I was becoming more and more frustrated with FB. For no reason in particular, I still procrastinated on the issue until I met another young Canadian girl, @jessicaaeburke, in El Salvador, who got me refocused again and thereby causing me to make Instagram a priority. It still took me another two weeks, but I'm now active on Instagram.

Various spots in Central America Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

Along with FB, I've had to become accustomed to the immediacy of photos. Gone is the patient wait for my return back stateside to edit photos. No longer is there the time to formulate my images into a viable presentation to that may heighten one's appreciation for my art. Nope. Demand is for now...quick, fast, and in a hurry. People want to see what you're up to, what it looks like where you are, and to vicariously join you in your adventure...as it happens. Or at the latest, within hours of the event.

The desire to fill said demand, makes one compromise to some extent. Without adequate editing tools, its necessary to post images on this blog and social media in a much larger format than I would otherwise normally do. I also fail to watermark the images, as my normal workflow would insist. I work around this by choosing images that satisfy the demand without sufficient compromise as to make me lose sleep. I'll choose images that may not be the best ones that I know I'll save for editing later. They still satisfy two needs of my followers. They see good images, (while I save my best ones for later) and they still get a sense of where I am, what I'm doing, and how things are going. So...basically, I just have to manage the trade-off.

Various spots in Central America Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

What my hope is, however, is that photographers in general do not become so dependent on social media that they mismanage that trade-off. A couple of things can happen as of a result of this. One is that the art suffers. Less work is done in camera and the art side of photo is traded for Instagram filters. When this happens, less attention is given to craftsmanship. Photogs no longer worry about knowing their equipment or understanding light. Less attention is given to presentation, the print, or the art. In addition, photogs may have a tendency to give away their best work. In their exuberance to post quickly, filters become the new edit, and their best stuff gets published for free. Instead of hanging on a wall, the farthest potential a great shot might achieve is a 72dpi square screen-size image on a profile wall.

Various spots in Central America Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

Most of the great photogs you probably already know of don't fall into this trap or tendency. They know better. However the aspiring, up and coming, new blood into the trade are more susceptible to such falloff. But you know who you are. And you know your tendencies. Ask yourself what's more important. Likes and Followers or good business and a commitment to the trade?

Now you'll excuse me while I search through my current travel archives to find some images for this post. Oh yeah...we're presently in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.