Photography on the internet/social media

Yokosuka_Mike said:
Firstly, other than my own photography blog, I only participate in the RFF forum.

Secondly, when it comes to photography, I don’t need a second opinion; I don’t need another forum to share my stuff with, RFF is good enough for me. I trust myself, I have my vision, my style, I know what I want to photograph and that’s all that matters. Thankfully not everyone likes my style of photography. Being popular can be a burden. “Likes” are nice, but they don’t matter. Don’t chase “Likes” chase your vision. A good photograph without “likes" is still a good photograph.

Sharing one’s opinions and images at RFF can be enough of a challenge, sharing in multiple forums must be hell (in my opinion).

Sorry for rambling on like this; apparently rambling on is what I do best.

All the best,
Mike
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I've always enjoyed your street photos.
Thanks!
 
After drifting away from RFF for several years I decide to start visiting a while back and start re-posting a couple of months back. I think that like a lot of people I was pulled into social media by the lure of a larger audience but have come to conclude that for most people including myself most of what is posted on social media is today's version of a needle in a haystack.
 
The problem with both RFF and Flickr as photo-posting havens is that your audience consists almost 100% of other photographers.

If you have other interests to which you'd like to be able to direct fellow aficionados ("Hey, check out my photos of the choir concert/air show/vintage car race/church tour/whatever at mywebsite.net/latest_thing/") you can do it on RFF or Flickr, but non-photogs are likely to find these sub-optimal environments. Some other suggestions:
  • Get a hosting account and domain name and host your own website. There are a couple of annual fees to pay, and the setup process is slightly tedious, but you get total control of what's on your site and how it looks. I use Wordpress, which is much easier to learn than it used to be, and offers a huge selection of off-the-shelf looks in the form of free or paid "themes".

  • Sign up with a controlled photo-hosting site. I use SmugMug, which is supportive of either amateurs or professionals, has good support, and gives you a fairly good range of customization options (including a custom domain name if you want.) Again, there's an annual fee, but it's not steep unless you want professional features such as the ability to sell off your site.

  • This may seem like a throwback recommendation, but Tumblr has turned into quite a good photo-hosting site. It's totally free, lets you create an easy-to-remember URL, displays photos nicely at a good size, and is easy to update/maintain via a web browser or dedicated app environment.
 
i enjoy a few well-moderated FB photo forums, and my friends and acquaintances on them. in my opinion, it is up to the user/participant to edit his participation - including whether to stay or leave. i stopped participating here for several years because i was seldom using film, and digital cameras. i am back because i was inspired by FB forums to use my digital cameras - including the fuji x100 gifted me here so many years ago. thank you for having me back ...
 
I started posting to Instagram about a year ago, after I retired. Felt like I needed sort of a photography routine to keep it fresh, and had seen some stuff there that was interesting. Now I try to post a photo a day if I can. One interesting thing I've found is to put up a photo that I like, only to see it not get much attention. And then others that I think are so-so get some likes. Can't attach too much ego to it....;) In any case, I see plenty of things that are excellent, and give me some motivation to keep evolving my perspective.
 
Darthfeeble said:
As a place to display your work and view others, I like 500px, I don't see it mentioned here.
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I use it, although I don't maintain it very actively. As DF said, it provides a nice display environment; there's a place for a modest artist bio, and the URLs are easy to remember and type (important if you're trying to build your own community.) It's especially good if you need to throw up a quick, small gallery to support an exhibit, publication, or group showing inclusion: "See more of my photos at 500px.com/imasupergreatphotog"

You get all those features even with a free account; the paid accounts give you more uploads and extra features.

One possible downside is that after people have viewed your photos, if they happen to click the "Discover" menu or 500px logo so they can look around at the rest of the site, they can fairly easily run across other people's photos that are either explicitly or arguably NSFW (although they've cleaned up a lot compared to a couple of years ago.) There's a NSFW click-block, but it depends on photographers voluntarily labeling their work as NSFW. Depending on your work and attitudes, this might not bother you at all. Or it might be a problem if, for example, you plan to join the Taliban or are an evangelical minister or running for political office on the Puritan party ticket or your company has a very restrictive firewall... might raise some tedious questions about "Your photos are beautiful, but why are you showing them on a site with so much pr( )n?"
 
Yes indeed, it's a very nude place, like you mentioned they have come a long way toward eliminating the porno that some seem to feel is art. One other feature is that you can sell your stuff there. They take I believe 30% but they handle all of the mechanics of the sale so that really isn't a bad gouge.
 
I started using Flickr a long time ago and still upload regularly. I pay an annual fee for a "Pro" account which gives unlimited storage and also stats on views. However the main features I like are extensive keywording/tagging, and albums. The keywords/tags make it easy to find images as long as you do it (either on batch upload or batch processing afterwards)... and this has paid off for me, when a national advertising agency located some of my old pub pictures from the 1970s and paid for their use in a brewing company's national ad campaign a few years ago. They would never have found those pictures without the keywords ("pub" "hotel" "1970s" "Australia" etc).

I would recommend people add keywords/tags to all their public photos on whatever platform they're using. You never know...
 
Good topic Pan...

I normally don't usually participate much on social networks, because I don't usually have time for it. Because of that, I prefer to enter rff. I love seeing your photographs, thinking about the places you live, your customs, what you appreciate... and at the same time sharing with you the photographs I am taking. It is a nice way to share pieces of my life with you and, in turn, get closer to yours.

Sometimes I think that entering rff is like entering a place where I meet some friends, we share our experiences through images and texts... it is a welcoming place and each of us enriches that place, that experience.

I can't find anything similar on social media. Here, however, yes.

Thank you very much to all!

P.S.: I have write this text with google translete... in the last months it costs me too much to write in english. I hope google translate has made its work fine.

P.P.S.: when I give a like to a text or to a picture is my way to say "I have been here, looking at your picture/text and it has been interesting to me, thank you for sharing!"
 
Shab said:
Good topic Pan...

I normally don't usually participate much on social networks, because I don't usually have time for it. Because of that, I prefer to enter rff. I love seeing your photographs, thinking about the places you live, your customs, what you appreciate... and at the same time sharing with you the photographs I am taking. It is a nice way to share pieces of my life with you and, in turn, get closer to yours.

Sometimes I think that entering rff is like entering a place where I meet some friends, we share our experiences through images and texts... it is a welcoming place and each of us enriches that place, that experience.

I can't find anything similar on social media. Here, however, yes.

Thank you very much to all!

P.S.: I have write this text with google translete... in the last months it costs me too much to write in english. I hope google translate has made its work fine.

P.P.S.: when I give a like to a text or to a picture is my way to say "I have been here, looking at your picture/text and it has been interesting to me, thank you for sharing!"
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RFF is a good place and (almost always) has been since I joined, well, a long time ago.

I’ve only recently returned after a 6-7 year ( :eek: ) work-driven gap. And I find it is still a good place, full of good and helpful people.

Long may that continue! :)

...Mike
 
For photography I have been mostly forum based and social media use is rather peculiar.
Growing up it has been APUG and RFF, a lot of very useful information and exchanges here about photography; rarely uploading and posting photos. Last year I was not much photograhy discussion focused due to time, so I wasn't around much.

As of Social media, Instagram has a lot but nowadays it's just more to see some tag based work and some interesting photographers + some contact. Facebook I use as a (non photo) event calendar but started to join very few groups. Mostly just the Lith printing group which has great info and key people participating. Since Twitter moved to X one can't even read the comment threads of clickbaity action, so it is out.

For a couple of times I have pruned Instagram's algorithm so it shows me the content I mostly want (Film, weddings, surf) but it's easy to get into the infinity pool of influencers and stupid content. Did post a bit years ago but I didn't like the needle in a haystack plus likes pressure of it, specially when it's mostly film photography that doesn't work well with a fast consumption type sharing.
Out of that for darkroom printing I am doing quite a bit of local photo club and I just print for myself mostly plus an occasional participation in group exhibitions.
 
Darthfeeble said:
Yes indeed, it's a very nude place, like you mentioned they have come a long way toward eliminating the porno that some seem to feel is art. One other feature is that you can sell your stuff there. They take I believe 30% but they handle all of the mechanics of the sale so that really isn't a bad gouge.
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30% isn't a gouge, it's a screamin' good deal for any sales channel IF it does a good job of getting your work in front of potential customers who actually are interested in acquiring the kind of work you do. I don't know if 500px does that or not, it's just a general observation on what representation costs.

Years ago, before I lapsed into despair of anybody besides me being interested in the photos I do, I belonged to two local brick-and-mortar galleries. One was a cooperative that charged a reasonable annual membership fee but took no commissions. The other was commercial and charged a 50% commission on sales. The cooperative was actually a worse deal because it was basically a passive showroom for whoever wandered through, many of whom were just people who came in to use the restrooms.

The commercial gallery was worth the commission because the director actively marketed the artists' work, promoted exhibits and openings, made an ongoing effort to cultivate established collectors and match them up with artists in whom she thought they'd be interested, etc. It only lasted a couple of years because mainstream people where I live have an "art fair" mentality about photography -- they're mostly interested in wall-decor imagery that they can buy in the $50-to-$150 price range -- and the gallerist never really succeeded in getting her foot in the door with serious collectors because they were/are more painting/sculpture oriented, at least when they're shopping locally.

Dragging this back toward the original thread topic, my point is that if you want your photos to be seen and appreciated by other people, you have to find channels that reach the specific people who will be interested in what you do, and then be prepared to invest sweat equity, intellectual capital (good posts) and/or money to make yourself visible on those channels. If your main goal is to be seen by other photographers whose interests are similar to yours, RFF is hard to beat as an environment...
 
I like posting online because for decades I took photographs, and frankly almost no one saw them. In fact once I started digitizing, I started to see a lot of my own [older] photographs that I only ever saw as maybe contact prints. Usually, even when I had darkroom access, only a few select images got printed. I agree with @ranger9 that a drawback to Flickr is that mainly only other photographers participate, but that is a start. I find ways to paste into groups with other interests by hot linking for instance. Facebook is a good place to share, but I no longer have access to any Facebook. I just do not like Facebook overall.

Instagram was never great for photography (only portrait views, no rotation). Now they bombard you with crappy videos, so I rarely go anymore.
 
Dear p.giannakis,

I enjoy photography. That doesn't mean that I am any good at it, but it is something that I enjoy.

I participate on many forums, occasionally posting pictures. Some of those forums are brand specific, POTN, Nikonian's or the Pentax forums for example. I visit those to learn more about my gear.

But mostly I visit the forums for inspiration. I have friends, some of them even actual face to face friends, that post spectacular pictures on Facebook. They give me motivation to improve, because in my heart I am not much of a visionary. I need their inspiration and welcome it.

Where it not for one of those Facebook friends who I ironically befriended on a fly-fishing message board, I would have never known of RFF. Visiting here introduced me to many people who also provide inspiration and information to me. I would have never rekindled my interest in B&W film shooting and development if not for RFF.

The virtual life is not substitute for real life, but for me it makes me want to do better and learn more. I count that as a good thing.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA :)
 
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