Can we talk about the curated 'candid' photos trend that is just staged nonsense now

I noticed something last weekend at a park in Portland. This young woman spent 20 minutes setting up a picnic blanket, arranging fruit and books just so, then had her friend take about 50 photos of her 'spontaneously' laughing and looking off into the distance. It made me think about how this whole candid photo style started as a genuine reaction to stiff posed portraits, but now it is just as fake as the old stuff. People are buying presets and following tutorials on how to look natural for the camera. It feels like we have come full circle to a new kind of performance. Do you think this style will just keep getting more elaborate until it collapses under its own weight, or will people eventually get tired of the act?

3 comments

3 Comments

allen.ivan23d ago

My buddy Steve tried to do one of those candid photo shoots for his dating profile last spring. He spent 45 minutes at a coffee shop adjusting his beanie and pretending to read a book upside down while his roommate snapped shots from across the street. The problem was he accidentally caught a real candid of a seagull stealing a woman's croissant, and that got more likes than any of his staged natural ones. Now he just posts pictures of birds committing petty theft.

the_patricia23d ago

Yeah that seagull story got me. My buddy tried the whole dating profile candid thing too, bought this preset pack that promised "effortless morning light vibes," and spent two hours at a farmers market trying to look like he just wandered in. His sister accidentally photobombed him mid-sneeze and that messy shot ended up being his most liked profile picture. It's so funny how the real stuff always beats the planned nonsense.

evan_wilson181d ago

25 seconds is actually how long the average person spends looking at a photo on a dating app, so all that effort for a fraction of a minute is kind of hilarious. i gotta push back on the idea that this is all bad though, because i think the staged candid thing is just people trying to express an aesthetic they like. @allen.ivan had that point about the seagull photo being the real winner, but that doesn't mean the staged ones are worthless - they still show what someone values, even if it's a fantasy version of themselves. people have always performed for photos, going back to those old stiff portraits where nobody smiled at all. this current trend is just a more polished version of that, and it'll probably evolve into something else when the tech or social norms shift. i honestly don't see it collapsing, just adapting, because humans like pretending a little bit.

-1