A few weeks ago, Jack decided to stop using Glass. Around that time, Manton wrote about what’s wrong with Glass, raising different yet related questions about the service. I wanted to reply at length, but I was still forming my own opinion.

I recently started to use my camera (Sony Alpha 6000) again and take it in a bag almost every time I leave home. This practice allowed me to capture photos I wouldn’t otherwise capture with my phone, which is the opposite route most folks take: usually, it’s the camera that starts collecting dust in favor of the phone.

The best answer I have for this is that certain things just cause an “itch” to my photo sense in a way my phone doesn’t. There’s something about holding the camera that elevates that sense in a way the phone can’t. Unless the photo idea is very obvious, with an object staring me right in the face, I need to search for it. I move around with the camera, crab-dancing sideways hece and forth, kneeling and standing again, playing with the light. I used to be more conscious about this, but when you live in NYC, everyone’s a weirdo, and no one is at the same time. Doing this with the phone doesn’t work.

My phone photos are usually snapshots of life routines. Making coffee. Writing in my notebook. A pretty flower. These photos end up on my blog or on Mastodon, where I discuss these routines, which are further illustrated in the photo. Micro.blog connects to Pixelfed (as well as Mastodon, of course), so every picture on the blog also shows up on Pixelfed.social.

The better photos, the ones I take with my camera and filtered by my selection process back at home, end up on Glass. I sometimes also post those on the blog, but not always. I should do that, especially now that I have a dedicated Photos page, but the blog still feels like an “everything” place, and these Photos feel more unique. I don’t feel my photos can be viewed as “art,” but the concept of it makes sense to me. The photos on Glass are usually processed and worked on with a sense of purpose. They convey a message or a story. Roughly, one in eight shots stands out to me as “timeless,” relevant today as it would be in 50 years. These photos don’t need a blog post to stand with; they express themselves. At least, that’s how I view them, and I hope others can see them this way as well.

This brings me to the other usage of Glass: following other story-teller photographers. I love how the platform is built. I like their filtered tags, which are somewhere between too little and too much. I found several photographers whose work I enjoy looking at on Glass. While I agree with Manton that Glass is eventually a silo and should offer more sharable options, Glass is still the place for just photos and nothing else.

Meanwhile, Instagram is the exact opposite. I started posting to Instagram again about a year ago to mostly show some of my photos to family and friends, and this is also where I interact with them. I don’t like Instagram as a photo platform; it has long become a place for ads and cheap brands. People barely use it for photos as much as they use it for communication. I post to Instagram when I want to say something to a bunch of people I know; I post to Glass when a photo I take wants to say something to a bunch of strangers.

Of course, this is all a personal conceptualization of these services. Some great photographers post to their blogs regularly alongside lengthy posts. There is also the notion that what I think today is one thing, and what I’ll feel next week is another. For now, that’s how my brain makes sense of it.