Well known Instagram user, street photographer, and Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley Richard Koci Hernandez has announced he will be deleting all of his photographs from the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service.
With almost a quarter of a million avid followers and over 1,100 posts, this announcement has come as quite a surprise to everyone. However, according to Hernandez, it’s been in the making for quite some time.
As he explains on his website:
I’m hoping this will give me new motivation to make new images. Basically, I’d like to “clear-out the attic†and start with a clean slate.
It’s on this clean slate that he hopes to push his photography work forward, without the pressure he feels to sustain such a large following. Plus, as he tells TIME, “I don’t want to sound too pretentious but I’ve always felt that my photographs shouldn’t live forever.â€
Despite the deletion of his Instagram photos, Hernandez says he has no intention of abandoning the social network. Instead, he will merely step away for a short period of time.
To find out more or get your hands on any of Hernandez’ Instagram work, head over to his website where you can order yourself a hand-signed print.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.