8 guilty pleasures of social media and photography

[Dylan & Marianne]

Hi all, I haven't been posting much on here due to the birth of our little girl but had some time to write a blog post about some of the interesting things I partake in to be 'accepted' on various social media platforms depending on its demographic.
For a quick read , head on here :

8-guilty-pleasures-of-the-media-wise-socialite (http://everlookphotography.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/8-guilty-pleasures-of-the-media-wise-socialite/)

[CapnBloodbeard]

I think you forgot that any burned-out highlight, anywhere at all, automatically means the image should have been deleted ;-)

Forums are great for critical feedback, but they can also hold people back in some ways, I find.

It's funny, I habit the Fredmiranda sports forums, and if the image isn't extremely tight with the ball and face in focus, then it's considered rubbish (and there are quite a few pro shooters on there). Then I look at some of the images I see sometimes in our papers in the sport section, and I'd consider them to be rubbish!

Sometimes forums tend to blur the line between 'rule' and 'rule of thumb', and restrict people from thinking outside the square a bit.

You've got some lovely images, BTW

[Mark L]

Enjoyed reading that Dylan. :th3:
We're all driven by different things in our photography. "to be 'accepted' on various social media platforms depending on its demographic" is not one of the things that influences me. mmm, must launch a platform other than AP and emailing photos to friends.:D
Anyway, should we take photos that we think will appeal to others or take photos that appeal to ourselves and hope others like them?

Congrats to you and Marianne. One of our neighbors is finding their second born, much more demanding than their first.;)

[ricktas]

Interesting article Dylan. I see a theme throughout them though. Blending. It is mentioned against several of the photos. And I think that many social media users these days are quite savvy, and either will exclaim 'photoshopped' or go WOW! <like> +1 , etc. Most of them do not spend the time to look at how sharp something really is, they will look, comment and move onto the next shared photo, video, meme, joke or friend comment.

We are inundated with photos, images, etc on social networks, to the point that it is diluting the really good stuff, cause no one really cares how it was taken or processed, they look, maybe comment, move on..oh look a funny cat video. Oh that is a nice mountain sunset..oh I have a new message.

But are these people who do so on social media, our market? I reckon most of them would never consider buying a nice landscape canvas to put on their wall at home. Yes it is nice to share them, but you talk about the demographics of it all, we need to find a demographic that wants to buy our work (if that is our goal as a photographer). It has almost got to the point where some photographers are like spammers. Post it, get people to share it, hope it goes viral (to an extent) and then someone might buy a copy. Spam works the same way, get it out to enough people and make a sale, and you are on a winner.

I like your article for what it is, but I don't think it aptly covers social media users as such.

[Dylan & Marianne]

I guess I was using the term social media rather loosely - for lack of a better term, I was referring to the multitude of photosharing sites like 500px, flickr, facebook, G+, whytake, 1x etc which all have slightly different emphases but all of which are slowly being infiltrated by the more notorious social media types of activity - those of facebook , twitter etc.


To answer RIck's question about where our market is? To summarise, I find our editorial market is everywhere but frequent flickr and 500px the most these days . I find our print market tends to be pretty random but facebook has generated most of these enquiries , - not always the viral images either. (though somehow our page has become quite popular over the years with traditional social media users) I have yet to have an enquiry through G+, whytake, 1x. For these reasons, pandering to these different sites has been a game I have been trying to play for years with a solid base /portfolio to begin with. The problem is, many these days are trying to do so without the portfolio to support and sadly for photography, some of these people are succeeding !