The pursuit for the perfect profile pic

Somewhere exotic, doing something epic or just looking suave.

I’m known for taking photos of anything and everything.

I don’t trust my memory, so I use photos as picture prompts to jog it.

I post on social media not necessarily for my connections to enjoy my albums, but for me to revisit and reminisce my own experiences.

Most of my photos, however, are nothing special.

They’re just for journalling purposes; to capture moments in time.

Every now and then, there’s a beauty among them.

It usually gets a run as a Facebook profile pic.

And often, that will be the first one in a carousel of 20 on an Instagram post so it sits strikingly as the front page thumbnail on my grid.

I don’t go places to get the photo, but sometimes the place incidentally gives me the photo.

When we went to Bali a couple of weeks ago, my mind was blown at how it has seemingly become a destination geared for capturing the perfect profile pic.

It’s only been six years since my last visit.

But in that time, a swarm of influencers has been unleashed on the tropical Indonesian island.

As though the place wasn’t picturesque enough to get stunning photos around every corner how it was already, there are now loads of structures built at ideal viewpoints, so people can pose in manmade nests, on woven hearts, frames by the ocean, love swings over rice terraces.

You can even hire big, bright, flowing dresses with trains at the latter to make for an even more striking photo.

I mean, people spend a lot of money on travelling, and probably very much appreciate coming home with not just a couple, but a whole gallery of photo book worthy images made possible by these things, but how much focus is too much focus?

I went on a bungee swing down the road from the aforementioned rice terrace tourist attraction in Ubud.

Our driver had taken us to a quieter one with no line-up before or after me.

I could have worried about why no-one else was there, but instead I whispered ‘YOLO’, surrendered to fate and let them wind me back with their motorised winch before sling-shotting me towards the jungle.

Without doubt, it was a rush.

But I’d have enjoyed the experience a lot more if the operators who had taken my phone to capture images weren’t constantly shouting at me to ‘look this way,’ ‘now look that way’, ‘take your hands off’, ‘lean back’, ‘point your toes out’, ‘throw your head back’.

It interfered with my ability to fully absorb the experience.

Mate, with all due respect, please shut up! Let me just enjoy swinging through the jungle. Please.

I don’t care that much about the photo.

One video would have sufficed — from that I could slow it down, speed it up, freeze-frame it, whatever, had I wanted to.

There was no need to throw 63 various poses like I was in a photo studio with a photographer looking to build a portfolio.

The next stop was a waterfall precinct.

I’d been hanging to see some powerful natural beauty, but there were structures built all around it, in parts obscuring the views of the waterfalls, interfering with images rather than enhancing them.

While my hair was brought to a clownish frizz in the humidity, I was grateful I was in runners as I traipsed up the 150 large and agonising steps that were probably double the height of any you’d find in Australia.

It was definitely not terrain for heels, yet there were people who’d arrived there with full hair and make-up done, dressed in after-five wear and ankle-breaking footwear to ‘get the shot’.

I watched as others arrived at places, snapped their pics and piled back into their transport without even looking around.

One day, three influencers saw my boys and I heading out to a platform by the ocean and pretty much ran — juggling their props, stools, mirrors and drums — to beat us there.

They set up their recording equipment and parked themselves at the photo point for at least 45 minutes (after which time we got tired of exploring the adjacent rock pools while we waited for our turn and moved on).

The Europeans — dressed in traditional Balinese outfits — braided each other’s hair, played drums and meditated, regularly checking their footage and making adjustments to angles and zooms.

It probably looked lovely on screen, but it was kind of comical to witness the fabrication from behind the scenes with a growing crowd of other tourists waiting to use the same vantage point for a photo, while the trio continued shooting with their phones cradled in selfie-stick tripods, seemingly oblivious.

While they craved the uninterrupted view, they interrupted it for others.

And sadly, that’s what we saw everywhere we turned.

I love a good photo, I do.

But I sure do miss the days when life was about capturing the more candid ones.