Sharing photos with the world, or your social media following can be quite scary. The question becomes to share or not to share? It is a big decision. What can you get out of it when you do it? There are a few things to consider.
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This has to be quick, a million things to get done, but really not a lot to report.
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I haven’t been doing these enough, so thought we should nut out a few things.
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It has been a few weeks since I did one of these posts. Not much as been happening, but things are picking up now. It seemed like a good time to get one done. I also forget that I should use these posts to advertise myself. Shall we look at what’s happening around here?
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One of the first things we all struggle with on Instagram is what to post. Not that we should all post the same things, but you should think about it. So today’s post is going to be about posting.
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It was so good to hear how many of you enjoyed the introduction to Instagram post last week. This week I thought we could look at followers. Getting them seems to be the thing that everyone wants to do, I know it is something I’ve been trying to do for quite a while. There are ways of doing it, and ways not to, so this post will look at both.
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It has been my intention the last few weeks to do a comprehensive look at Instagram, but it is such a big topic and then I don’t find the time to write it. So I thought perhaps we could compromise and I could do a series of posts on it instead. So today I thought we could take a look at it
My profile page.
more generally. Perhaps why I love it and then I can work on some other posts about it. Look at the advantages and disadvantages. Anyway we will see how we go.
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Where has the week gone?
I don’t know either. I’ve been a bit stressed out writing an article for a magazine. It is something I am trying out, but I know it is a direction I want to continue moving towards. I finally got it in and fingers crossed it goes well.
Formatt Hitech Instagram
I’ve been given some power, well, not really, but I have been allowed to have access to their Instagram account, which is fun. I’m featuring peoples work and seeing if I can improve the number of followers. It is also nice that they trust me to do it.Take a look, here is the link.
Stop by and say hello.
Dynamic Range Magazine
Issue 6 is still available. It has some great articles in it and I’m sure you would love it. Follow the link,
Dynamic Range Magazine Issue 6
The Six Seasons of My Backyard
My book is available and I think would make a great Christmas present to those wanting to help support me and my photography. Follow this link.
Teaching and Mentoring
Don’t forget that I do teach and offer mentoring for those that would like some individual lessons on how to be an artist.
You will find all my services underneath the Learn from Leanne tab at the top of the page.
Writing for the blog
I’m trying to keep up with this blog and get back into everything, but I do find that time gets away from me, especially when I have other articles I need to write.
Also I find I don’t always know what to write about. Maybe you can help and give me some suggestions, that would be great. Some ideas and what you would like to read about or learn about. I can’t promise that I will always be able to do them, but I will do my best.
Guest Blogging
I’m still open to this idea if any of you would like to do a guest blog. I can’t pay for them, but hopefully I have a large enough audience that that could help. Let me know if you are interested.
Photos
The photos are from 2014 and from an excursion I did to Williamstown. I know some of you have questioned these photos and why to know why they look different. All the old photos that I should you in these posts were done for Weekend Wanderings and meant to show a place and not my style. I hope that helps.
I am looking forward to hearing you and seeing what you would like.
Last week on U4D we looked at social media in a general way. Today, I thought we could look at it for photographers and how you can use it. I have been trying to find lists of the top 5, but it seems everyone has a different opinion on the matter. Also many articles are quite old and social media is changing so quickly that what was relevant a year ago, is not now. Perhaps, I will just talk about what I use and why.
Instagram
This would have to be the number one platform for me right now. It is amazing, and is bringing lots of new opportunities. It has provided a good incentive to work on photos and put them up. It has been one of the best social platforms I’ve seen as far as the social side goes.
It has been around for a few years now. When it started it was for putting photos from you mobile phone up on it. It still really is only for the phone. Though some things have changed over the years, and you can view photos on the computer, you still can’t load photos, except on your phone.
The photography has come a long way as well. While there are still many people who use photos taken with their phone, there are many more putting up images taken with their cameras. It means that the variety is incredible and really inspirational.
There is a real social side to it, in that I have met so many other photographers from Melbourne through it. I’m finding out places to take photos and then meeting others as well. It really is a social platform.
Blogging
While many don’t include it in social media, it shouldn’t be underestimated. Blogging platforms give you an opportunity to let people know more about you. You can say more, and show your images.
More and more people are writing and using blogs to showcase their work. There are so many out there now that it is hard to stand out. Still worth doing and finding your own niche in the world.
One aspect that really helps is the ability to use your blog as your website as well. People can find out information readily as well, especially if you are trying to run a business.
Facebook
While people seem to be turning away from Facebook, it is still a fairly important platform. Though, I’m not sure for what. My experience is that it seems fairly ineffective these days, except to keep up to date with friends. It is hard to be social when you only see a fraction of what people actually post. The messenger or chat function is probably the best thing about it.
Some of the problems with Facebook are the way it is monetised now and how do you find people to follow you. The only way, it seems, to get people to look at your posts is to pay to have them boosted. I haven’t found that boosting works, but others say it does.
Most social media platforms have a way to almost advertise yourself, hey I am here. However, that doesn’t seem to be something that Facebook have. You have to let people know about your page on other platforms, or, pay for it. The second option is not something that is recommended.
Google+
This is quite an under estimated platform. It is easy to forget that Google is the biggest search engine in the world and then there are Google images. You want google to find your images and show them in searches that people make. They won’t tell you how they do things, but it can’t hurt to have an account and put your images up there.
Google+ are pushing more for their collections now. They want you to create collections, which are basically galleries of your images. You will get more hits and it is shared more. It isn’t that hard to do either.
Google+ is said to be great for photographers, and it is. You get to see some wonderful work. There are also many groups and such that you can join as well. There also don’t seem to be pay to use things that Facebook have.
There are the rumours that Google are going to shut it down, but since they just created a whole new interface that does seem unlikely. Though I asked my husband about it and he said the rumours have been around for years.
Flickr and 500px
I’m putting these together because they seem to work the same. They both show your work beautifully and can be used as a portfolio of your work. Though with so many other places it is hard to see how they are going.
Flickr is a more general platform and you will find people of all sorts of levels there. Those that are photographers and those that aren’t. I am not sure how effective it is anymore, but it still looks good. I tend to only put my best work up. I was told it was a great place to get work, that has never happened for me, but I’ve heard it has for others.
The platform for 500px was designed for photographers to use. I have used it and do have an account, but I don’t use it. I found the whole competitiveness aspect of it a bit of a turn off. I didn’t need that, but there are many people that think it is wonderful.
Which is for you?
Only you can decide. The reality for many of us is that you can’t do it all, unless you don’t want to have a life. It is recommended you pick about 3 and concentrate on those. So you can see what my three are, the first three. I post on the others, but rarely. I like to see what happens from time to time, but I know that I have to work on the sites that bring me the most reward.
This is a just a brief overview and in the coming weeks I will try to do more comprehensive articles on most of them.
Perhaps this post should be called Decisions, as that is what I have been thinking about a lot in the last couple of weeks.
Dynamic Range Magazine
This has been the one things I’ve been thinking about for a while really, but a lot more recently. It seemed like such a good idea, a way to support the photography of women, but the reality has been very different. It has actually been like that for anything I’ve tried to do to support women, help women get some equality. I’m starting to think that majority of them don’t really want it, or want it as long as they don’t have to do anything. I don’t really know,perhaps my cynicism is coming out, I just know that anything I’ve tried to do to help that inequality fails.
Now the decision has to be made about the magazine, continue or not. We do have to go on for a short time because of the subscribers, but we have made the decision to stop allowing people to subscribe. Which also means that we will have to go until August issue to see out the subscribers, or refund some money.
Another thing is to stop marketing it as a magazine to promote the photography by women. Perhaps people will be more interested in it if they don’t see that. Perhaps the perception is that the magazine is soft and filly, very pink in a way because it is by and for women. I don’t know, but something has to change. So we are going to change that aspect, and perhaps it won’t be a magazine to promote women’s photography at all, and may become more of a magazine that does a lot of landscapes and architecture, perhaps other sorts as well.
We will give another couple of months, but at this stage it looks like the August Issue next year will be the last, if not sooner.
The Six Seasons of My Backyard
My book is out and selling, well, let’s not go there, at least online. I’m making sales here from my friends which is great. At the moment we are trying to organise the book launch, that seems almost harder than it was to get the book done. Still we are narrowing down dates.
I know a few have said they wanted signed copies, which I am happy to do, but the price of postage to the US is so expensive from here. Not sure why I’m surprised, everything is expensive. If you want a signed copy, then it is going to cost USD$80. That is for a signed copy and postage with tracking. You can email me if you would like to get one.
Otherwise you can order the book from:
createspace
Amazon
If you have any questions let me know.
Website/Blog Changes
Another thing I want to do is get this blog going again with some kind of routine. I feel like it has been flailing a bit, so I would like to start doing some of the posts that I used to do.
I loved the Up for Discussion ones and would like to start doing them again. It was a good way to talk about some things that I think should be discussed. On my old blog I’ve had to delete a lot of things as I was paying for space and the domain, so I needed to get how much storage I had down. I’ve been deleting a lot of posts, so it will give me an opportunity to repost some, or rewrite and update others. I would also be willing to start accepting guest posts again.
I also want to start writing some reviews of gear that I get to try out. I write them for Digital Photography School, and I don’t want to step on their toes, but I also want to start basing myself on this website. I probably won’t review things that I’ve done for dPS, unless it has been sometime since I did them. I’m at a point where I’m being loaned gear to try and experiment with, which is something I love doing. So it will be good to do that.
I am also thinking of bring back the Introductions as well. I had to delete all of them from my old site, so I can start anew and reshow people, that should be fun. Though I might refer to them as features instead.
I reached a milestone yesterday 10 thousand followers. I don’t know what that means, if anything, but apparently it is meant to be good if you get that far. I suppose time will tell if anything great happens because of it.
Photos
I’ve been going back over old photos to see what I can process and it has been great to see some of them. I’m really pleased with some. Today I have some from 2013 and it was from a day in the city photographing the lanes. They are always changing, which is nice.
Please let me know your thoughts.
