10 years ago, Instagram filters dominated our feeds

If you were a regular Instagram user in 2013-2014, you likely caught the tail end of the peak of photo filters. You might remember the ones I'm talking about -- the frames. The hyper-specific style alterations. This was more than just making photos greyscale or sunset-esque. They were, at the time, obvious and loud and normal.

Or were they?

I'll never forget the moment I stopped adding filters to my Instagram photos. It was 2015, probably too late to still be applying them to every single post. I was working my first office job sitting amongst my co-workers in an insufferable open-floor plan layout.

I must have forgotten my headphones that day, because I wasn't listening to podcasts while entering data into boxes for eight hours straight. I was definitely eavesdropping on my co-workers' conversations in order to cope with the mind-numbing work in front of me on my computer screen. And that's when I heard it.

"Instagram filters?" one of them said, the words spoken as if he didn't want anyone else to overhear him speaking them out loud. "If you're still using filters on your Instagram photos, if you're even editing the brightness, you're not a real photographer."

Aspiring Instagram photographer me was devastated.

I've never used another Instagram filter since. Should I have trusted my co-worker's amateur phone photography advice? I'm not sure. But I do have over seven thousand followers on my account that I've never used a single filter on, so there's that.

With the right subject matter and a willingness to post photos to an audience of barely above zero, a lot of people can grow their accounts and exercise their passion for photography. It's much harder to get picked up by algorithms now, and building an audience likely takes a lot longer and much more investment and effort than it used to.

There's nothing wrong with using filters. They won't ruin your chances of attracting even a small following made up of people who genuinely want to see more of your content. But I have learned a lot about best photography practices by avoiding filters and other adjustments. Angles, lighting, the benefit of investing once in a really good camera or lens ... it does pay off.

That is, if you're able to find a way to make money with your photography. It's not impossible. You may want to second-guess filters if that's your end goal, though.