I don't like what Web 2.0 has done to the art of photography. As the year ends, and as I reflect on the past decade, I look back fondly at photography.

The age of perpetual online activity has reduced our capacity to be patient and appreciative. Content is a game of number of eyeballs where 30 seconds is a long time and these eyeballs are bored because they've seen everything. The slope gets more slippery as the likes go up. You find yourself working - not pausing - for a photo. Photography went from the art of expression to the art of validation.

Do you do what you like to do because you like doing it or because you like the idea of you doing it?

Growing up in parallel with social networking platforms, there was an accessible outlet to showcase one's work. For me, it started out with abstract photos of literally anything from particularly arranged stationery on my desk to driving for hours to walk for hours in a forest looking for a water body, birds, spiders, people, anything - anything that made me want to pause and interact with for a couple minutes. Uploading the final photo on Facebook rewarded the detailed process of composing a frame, manually adjusting the amount and speed at which the light hits the sensor and editing it. There was patience for appreciating photos back then. Social media was still a nice-to-have, doom scrolling was a concept we hadn't conceived yet, validation via likes was still a feature in discovery.

A couple years after social apps were no longer a nice-to-have - but a must, photography took me on an expedition in the Himalayas to take photos of four of the world's five tallest mountains next to each other, forming the caricature of a sleeping buddha. I have zero photos of the sleeping buddha. As you ascent to a vantage point that is 11k feet above sea level the climate is unpredictable. We had 5/5 days of near zero visibility because the fog won't settle. I was optimistic it would clear up (it did not). It tested my patience. Not only could I not see the hill I am walking on, I had to cut through a forest that was still muddy from the rain last night. Not to mention, there are no showers or toilets on mountains. I had real discomfort but I was more upset at the fact that I would not have a collection of glorious images of the Himalayas to upload. Am I travelling for content?

Don't get me wrong, I am not against social media. I am against social media being the motivation to practice your art. I asked myself would I still take photos if I couldn't upload them. I got my answer the day after we got off the mountain and the weather changed to reveal the Kanchanjunga mountain range - now visible through my hotel room window. My hurried attempts to take a photo of the mountain with a busy street in the foreground were unsuccessful. None of those photos were good enough to post! The unsettling realization led to a hiatus from photography. Taking photos to share online had slowly then suddenly became my motivation to practice this art. This sad reality made me put my camera away. Something I truly enjoyed had become burdensome. If you attach an externality to whatever art you're practicing, it no longer brings as much peace. This externality could be social validation or money. And I've experienced both, which made the burden heavier.

Every person that has found their art must practice long periods of not sharing it with the world. It builds immunity against seeking validation. I found the hiatus to be the right of passage to upload my art. The discomfort I experienced on that mountain made me appreciate the comfort of my home, my street, the nature that does not require a vehicle to go witness. I started going on long walks, began to enjoy my surroundings, relearned to pause, found beauty in the mundane. It's not as simple as it sounds though. There is a difference between pausing for something you find beautiful and pausing for the sake of pausing. It is a constant quality check question I ask myself as I compose a frame (exclusively) on my phone camera. At first it inhibited me from taking any photos at all and it felt like the moment passed and I lost a good shot. But the good news is, even if the moment passed, there will be more as long as you are able to find beauty in whatever it is that you deem beautiful. Beautiful things don't ask for attention, but it is a photographer's job to give them attention.

After a decade of taking photos, photography (to me) is proof of presence. It is an excuse to take a pause and appreciate beauty wherever you are. It is not meant to be for the audience. It is for the photographer to find a frame that best captures what made them pause, but it must make you pause first.