Mastodon
Sign in Subscribe
Personal

Goodbye 2024

Chris | Sturmsucht

• 3 min read
Elopement photographer Chris from Sturmsucht stands by the Faroe Islands' rugged coast, capturing moody, adventurous vibes

2024 has vanished and while I spent the last days in solitude with my cat I was looking back to the ups and downs of the last 12 months. And I can tell: 2024 has been a tough one.

I felt a great frustration throughout the year; with my current life, with social media, with the industry I'm working in, god … with the whole damn world to be honest. I often found myself dissociating and fainting as I looked at the world around me from the outside, hardly finding a part that was not fucked up. Be it my industry breaching that luxury, high society weddings are THE new standard. Be it social media becoming more and more an AI bot army that forces you to become a short video influencer to reduce attention span even further. Be it the rise of fascist, genocides or the unstoppable climate catastrophe.

The "this is fine" meme showing a cartoon dog sitting in front of table with a mug surrounded by fire and thinking: this is fine.

At this point I probably need to apologise to my friends for my more or less constant bad mood in the past and the outbursts of anger at industry, big tech and all the people who are wrong on the internet.

I know I can't change the world. But I can change the way I deal with it. And in 2025 this is what I will do.

There has been good in 2024 though

Luckily 2024 hasn't been all bad. A short list:

Storm Guild

After some frustrating experiences piled up within other photography communities, I launched Storm Guild, my very own community for introverts, seasoned pro in my age and above and everyone who also feels lost within social media and the mainstream market of our industry (at this point a special thanks to Ehrenbruder Jens for being a supporting founding member and the last kick in my ass to get started. Thank you!). The first steps are done and right now we are already a handful of lovely humans. Looking forward to extend this network throughout this year!

Social Media

Social media (Instagram especially) and I - that's an ongoing conflict since years now. An irresolvable conflict between my knowledge of the practices, business behaviour and social & political impact of Meta on the one hand and my conscience and believes on the other. This alone is a topic for a dedicated blog post. In 2024, however, I was happy to have found a whole new social universe that aligns way more with me and values and that is ✨the Fediverse✨ (or new social web as some are calling it). Yet another platform, you might think? Yes and no, as the underlaying foundation is an open source protocol that guarantees apps to be ad, tracking and algorithm free. Good old Social Media 1.0 vibes here and I will definitely dive deeper into it in one of the next blog posts.

Blogging & Ghost

Speaking of blog posts: while crawling my way through the Fediverse, I felt encouraged by its lovely people to start blogging again. I always loved writing as it's a wonderful way for an introvert to express themself and with Ghost I found a wonderful open source platform to do so. But I haven't done it for a while because blogging … that's what you did 10 years ago! Today you have to use Instagram or TikTok to get seen and become rich and famous. Fuck that.

Trips & Travels, Family & Friends

I had some good times with my closest friends during periods where I needed them most. Getting out of my four walls to literally change my perspective on life and work has kept me sane. It made me also realise that I need to prioritise the fun stuff in my life in the future. So thanks, my dears, for the unforgettable theatre trip to Vienna, the grounding midsommar days on a Swedish island and for having me at a conference to connect with my like-minded and refreshing honest colleagues. Also spending some time with my family before Christmas felt nice and overdue.

There were definitely more good things happening in 2024. For example, last year I met and photographed some of the most wonderful people (special shout out to all you brave elopement folk!) who have kept my inner flame and passion for my art and my job going, and I'm looking forward to meeting some of them again this year.

In retrospective 2024 has been a year of internal change and transition for me. A transition that is still ongoing, but the fog is lifting more and more which makes me happy and curious about all the things that will unveil before me in the months to come. Until then I will follow the advise I read somewhere:

When the world is too loud, too scary, much:
Stop consuming, start creating.