That 7 Day Thing on Facebook: A Retrospective of Fine Photography

Yes, Facebook is the Devil unless it involves cat pictures. That’s pretty much what I’m there for: pictures -sometimes of people -and local events. Now if I could just eliminate all the ads, the politics, and the friends who go on tagging, liking, random re-posting sprees that make me wonder if they are trapped somewhere.

Are you perpetually on a layover in a really bad airport? If yes, you’re killing your phone battery with this nonsense.

Banished would be things that say “copy and paste this then tag your best friend from high school.” We’ve created the digital equivalent of the chain letter. Worse yet are the passive aggressive posts that start off with something like: “I know that most of my real friends won’t re-post this (subtext being that we are horrible examples of humanity) but those of you that really care about -fill in the blank here with something dead or soon to die…”And so trend begets trend and so on down the wormhole.

However the latest trend of seven days of black and white photos has been tolerable. Photos the end. One of its layers of “rules” is no explanations. Perfect! No people, ok. No pets, seriously? And you’re supposed to nominate another person. Nope. Not dragging anybody under with me. Also you’re only supposed to choose one photo a day. Meh. Again, I’m a big kid and I do what I want! Part of the time at least. Most of the time I do what I’m supposed to unless it involves exercise or eating better. #Adulting

I currently have over 11,000 photos on my phone. Yes, 10,999 are of my cats; and I do realize that life still happens even if I don’t get a picture of it, but, man, I really like that picture. So a photo a day wasn’t as much of a challenge as editing it down to one.

Additionally, black and white can really be a silk purse out of a sow’s ear situation. It makes practically anything look cooler! I took a picture of peanut butter for pete’s sake! It had nice texture. A little silvertone or Holga-esque won’t hurt you.

I guess my end game is that if you do accept this challenge, you crazy trendsetters, then at least make it interesting; and for all you are worth, stick to NO EXPLANATIONS.