I’ve been on Instagram for a while now. It’s a great platform where people can share photos and artwork. And while I used to use those terms interchangeably (in other words, I considered all photos to be art), lately I’ve found that that’s no longer the case. Here’s why.

(Full disclosure: today’s post is a bit of a rant. Sorry not sorry.)

Merriam Webster defines art as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” The definition extends to works produced as a result of that process. So here’s the thing: the important words there are “skill” and “creative imagination;” three words I see lacking from most photography out there today.

My issue is specifically with a trend on Instagram I’m seeing more and more of: people post photos of iconic locations framed in the usual, tired way, and then edit something into them to make them appear unique. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, except for the fact that the things people are editing into their photos are more and more often coming from a package of photo editing elements you can buy from someone else.

Let me be clear here: photography, when done using creative imagination and skill, is art. Photo editing, when done with creative imagination and skill, is also art. But when you take a thoughtless, tired frame of a photo, open up your editing suite and drag-and-drop a flock of birds that weren’t there, or Chinese lanterns, or any other tired old cliché that you bought from someone else, you aren’t an artist. You aren’t creating anything. The person who first framed that photo? They were an artist. The person who thought to cut out the birds they photographed and sell it to you? They were an artist.

But you, person who photographed the Wanaka Tree and then dragged-and-dropped Chinese lanterns everywhere… you’re no artist. There was no skill in framing that shot, and no creativity or imagination in how it was edited afterward.

Now nobody I know does this; it’s more of an open letter to the creative community. Look guys, I get it: there are a LOT of beautiful sites out there that people have already photographed to death, and you want to get yours. So do I. But when you open that photo to edit it after, please, for the love of god, do it with your own eye and hand, not someone else’s. Create, don’t recreate.

That is all.