Which platforms you use to post your work ?

[R-J Sunday]

Good morning folks .

What platform u use to share your pictures with the world ?

Since a few months I have a hard time to decide what is the best platform to share photos
I got my Facebook account where I often post something on my feed or in groups.
Instagram I hate with how they handle multiple photos, and having troubles posting panorama shots.
The problem with overcrowded apps like instagram is that people got likemypost horney or some. I keep seeing people reposting the same shit over and over again.
If I see people scrolling a social media feed, it's just pressing the like button over and over again without even looking to the post.

I however love the total look of Vero, what I use as my personal portfolio. But Vero fels bit empty, and its harder to find what you like.
But its a app without all the shitload that instagram and fb are filled with, and seems more interested by people reaching out for photo/video.

I'd like to hear your opinion on this.

ps: if you have a Vero account, you can find me at https://vero.co/rubbere

 

[Jan.Wedekind]

What are you trying to achieve or get out of it? I think once that is clearer, it’s easier to decide. And might be more than one platform.

To share pictures with the world, I would go where the most reach is, which is by far Instagram.

For sharing with more dedicated groups, I rather would use forums like this one or DPR.

 

[dirk]

I just had a quick look at Vero and I would not recommend it for photo sharing for various reasons.

First, on my mobile your images take ages to be displayed after clicking on them. I do not know which file size you saved them there, but this takes too long.

Second, if you read the company announcement, they want to become a Jack for all trades. Images, music, gaming etc. They even bought a crypto trading platform to offer extra services for sharing or selling something. This sounds all weired to me, without a clear focus on photography.

I have no solution for you, but I would recommend to look for something that is specialized on photography. The needs of photographers are a lot different than for other users.

The development of a photo sharing platform has to focus only on that and this is very difficult, because you need a lot of mony each month for server space. That means expensive subscriptions and/or a lot of advertisement and/or restrictions in file size etc.

Existing platforms like flickr et alii all started for free. But after a specific growth, you can not handle that anymore financially. They all have to change to payed access or a lot of advertising.

The other issue is reach. As Jan said, Instagram is no. 1 in reach. But you have no influence on whom you reach. 13 year old kids or adults. Nevertheless, if you want to get better known as a photographer, there is no way around Instagram.

Better than to dance on tiktok.

 

[Jayneboo]

I've managed to pretty much ignore Instagram, although many of my images appear on other people's accounts, specifically taken for their use. I have an account but think it has around 3 images on it. I really don't like how images are displayed there, truthfully I'm probably wrong generation for most of this social media stuff.

I think Flickr is still good today and relatively good value as it can become a back up option. I know many people who left when it became a subscription service, who have since returned. Facebook I just use for family stuff with very limited number of friends. Flickr can be a bit "tit for tat" I like yours if you like mine type of thing but you can join particular groups and get proper feedback.

 

[robin0112358]

I still use Flickr despite the cost, since most other services cost similar. The interface for management does take some time to get used to. I strongly dislike the inserted advertising for viewers who don't have an account, and the need to sign up to view photos. IMO if I am paying for the service, others should be able to view my photos without such intrusions.

But I got locked in from the days Flickr was free. I am hardly going to move 10,000 photos somewhere else!

 

[Pete_W]

I use Flickr. I joined some years ago mainly as a backup, but I found some good groups there and started posting selected photos into the groups.

I post a lot of my train photos to Facebook as there are a number of large groups (e.g. over 41,000 members).

 

[xaviergut]

I also use Flickr although I don't have a paid PRO account yet.

I have never used Instagram and Facebook I stopped using it 10 years ago because I don't want to have anything to do with Mr. Zuckerberg...

A while ago I used 500px and Youpic, but on the one hand they were filled with "bots" with fake profiles who use false "likes" to keep you addicted there, and on the other hand I discovered the idea of "digital sharecropping", so I thought I didn't want to work "for free" for someone unknown. There is a very interesting article about this:

Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy

When you build your business on a platform you don't control, you're taking on a lot of unnecessary risk and headache.

copyblogger.com

I know it is a win-win situation, but the users get 1% of the profit and the digital platform owners/Landlords the 99%... IMHO.

I prefer forums like L-Mount Forum with real people/profiles and an authentic information-sharing photography community

 

[dirk]

As you might have guessed, there is always from time to time the question, why I do not offer image galleries for members.

Technically this would be possible for each community.

The problems are the cost. I would need faster and a lot bigger server, which are significantly more expensive.

If I would offer something like this, what do I have to charge per member to cover these extra costs? Very difficult to answer. You do not know how many will participate, how many images each member will upload and in what file size etc.

Plus there is the tremd in those communities in which I tried this years ago, that the members somehow prefer to show and discus the images in the forum within a thread and not in the gallery. Do not ask me why.

So it seems that a gallery in form of a "business card" or "selective portfolio" to showcast only a few images, similar to a little private website, is more what the majority wants to have.

But if you have ideas/ wishes, feel free to post and I will see whether we can achieve it, if enough members are interested in this.

 

[Oíche]

I have never used Instagram and Facebook I stopped using it 10 years ago because I don't want to have anything to do with Mr. Zuckerberg...

I realised at least as long ago as you that such platforms are bad for the human mind, twitter looked particularly caustic so in general I avoid all these

I prefer forums like L-Mount Forum with real people/profiles and an authentic information-sharing photography community

It's got better since I joined, nothing to do with me but I enjoy adding humour to keep it light-hearted and leave the nonsense gear wars stalwarts in dpreview where they belong

 

[xaviergut]

I realised at least as long ago as you that such platforms are bad for the human mind

Exactly!! At least Mr. Zuckerberg did apologize to families at Senate child safety hearing.

 

[R-J Sunday]

What are you trying to achieve or get out of it? I think once that is clearer, it’s easier to decide. And might be more than one platform.

To share pictures with the world, I would go where the most reach is, which is by far Instagram.

For sharing with more dedicated groups, I rather would use forums like this one or DPR.

The best thing for me to achieve is reaching people that are interested in the pictures shared. Posting on forums is always good, and especially in a forum like here with people on the same gear/lenses. Instagram is a nice medium, but I don't like the way the pictures are presented there. I have problems with posting panoramas in a right way. And maybe it's because I don't like it I lack the find methods to post them right. The good thing is that you can search on you interests like I do a lot. I love to see what people shoot on the same camera and lens combinations so the #'s are really good for searching that. I myself won't care about the likes, since most people just smash the buttons without even looking at a photo.

 

[R-J Sunday]

I just had a quick look at Vero and I would not recommend it for photo sharing for various reasons.

First, on my mobile your images take ages to be displayed after clicking on them. I do not know which file size you saved them there, but this takes too long.

Second, if you read the company announcement, they want to become a Jack for all trades. Images, music, gaming etc. They even bought a crypto trading platform to offer extra services for sharing or selling something. This sounds all weired to me, without a clear focus on photography.

I have no solution for you, but I would recommend to look for something that is specialized on photography. The needs of photographers are a lot different than for other users.

The development of a photo sharing platform has to focus only on that and this is very difficult, because you need a lot of mony each month for server space. That means expensive subscriptions and/or a lot of advertisement and/or restrictions in file size etc.

Existing platforms like flickr et alii all started for free. But after a specific growth, you can not handle that anymore financially. They all have to change to payed access or a lot of advertising.

The other issue is reach. As Jan said, Instagram is no. 1 in reach. But you have no influence on whom you reach. 13 year old kids or adults. Nevertheless, if you want to get better known as a photographer, there is no way around Instagram.

Better than to dance on tiktok.

Ok, I didnt really research about Vero that much. I like the clean ui, and for now it seems that it's mostly used by photographers. I don't have problems loading any photos in the app btw, so I don't know why it won't work for you. Il try to stick around with instagram for some more, and hope there will be future options to display photo's easier than they do now . Maybe dancing on TikTok aint a bad idea

 

[Markuswelder]

Just the odd forum here and there. The ones I don't get kicked off of anyway I have a bad habit of telling the truth, which doesn't go down too well quite often ha ha ha.
I still have a couple of Flickr accounts, but basically don't use them any more, after they sold out and went all money hungry. I'm a bit old fashioned, and like to keep track of my photos and data myself, so built myself a NAS for that purpose.
Relatives and close friends, I set up shared folders for them that they can access and upload to, if they want. I use Facebook a bit for sharing shots with family, my daughter and her friends seem to use Instagram more, FB seems to be for old people now. That's about it really.
Though about setting up a web page/site, that looks like a bit too much work for me, so I'll just continue what I'm doing for the foreseeable future

 

[Markuswelder]

I realised at least as long ago as you that such platforms are bad for the human mind

Only if you're lacking self confidence, and let them get to you. I'm not a huge fan, but use them to suit my purposes. They're great for keeping in contact with large groups of family members, without having to go to great effort in contacting them all individually

 

[Markuswelder]

I use Flickr. I joined some years ago mainly as a backup, but I found some good groups there and started posting selected photos into the groups.

I post a lot of my train photos to Facebook as there are a number of large groups (e.g. over 41,000 members).

I had a Pro account for many many years, but went back to free after they sold out and got all money hungry. I could afford it, but would rather put the money into my own storage solution -my NAS, and then the free account became more than viable for just sharing my faves.
I noticed a big drop off in activity once they sold out to Smugmug? was it, it lost the vast majority of the "community" feel to it I thought, so basically don't use it any more. I will direct people there if I know or have met them, and taken some shots of/for them that they might like. Not sure if it's still the same, but it used to be near impossible to embed shots into forums on a mobile phone, which is one of the biggest uses for it, IMO. Might have changed, and be a bit different now, used to have to try and access it through a desktop browser rather than the mobile version, and it fought you the whole way. Just painful

 

[Pete_W]

I had a Pro account for many many years, but went back to free after they sold out and got all money hungry. I could afford it, but would rather put the money into my own storage solution -my NAS, and then the free account became more than viable for just sharing my faves.
I noticed a big drop off in activity once they sold out to Smugmug? was it, it lost the vast majority of the "community" feel to it I thought, so basically don't use it any more. I will direct people there if I know or have met them, and taken some shots of/for them that they might like. Not sure if it's still the same, but it used to be near impossible to embed shots into forums on a mobile phone, which is one of the biggest uses for it, IMO. Might have changed, and be a bit different now, used to have to try and access it through a desktop browser rather than the mobile version, and it fought you the whole way. Just painful

Yeah, I think there definitely was a drop-off in activity when Smugmug took over.

A lot of this was related to technical issues that went on for a number of months, and according to their tech support, it was because of the way Flickr was intrinsically intertwined with Yahoo login accounts. Untangling this seemed to take a lot longer than they were anticipating.

I don't use the Flickr iPhone app much, it's not great. I like the desktop web interface for viewing images, and it's easy to post images to this forum from Flickr. Maybe not elsewhere!

I don't have a NAS but recently connected a 8TB drive to my home network and plan to move a lot of my photo storage onto it. At the moment most of my photos are on a portable hard drive. I have to admit that I am not good at organising my images, i.e. spending time doing it.

 

[Markuswelder]

Yeah, I think there definitely was a drop-off in activity when Smugmug took over.

A lot of this was related to technical issues that went on for a number of months, and according to their tech support, it was because of the way Flickr was intrinsically intertwined with Yahoo login accounts.

Yeah, it turned into a real schamozzle that's for sure. I got caught up in it, couldn't log into my account, got stuck in some sort of endless loop going round in circles. Was that bad that I gave up on it, and started a fresh account. Tried again a year or so later, and finally managed to get back into my original account. By that time, I'd lost interest in the whole mess, I persevered a little bit with Google photos, but once again they kept changing sh!t around all the time, basically making it impossible to embed photos into forums, so gave up on that too.
Tried a couple of other sharing/storage sites, but decided to turn my attention towards getting my own stuff organised myself, as I'd ended up with data etc spread around over different phones, computers, laptops, hard drives etc etc. Cabled up the house with Cat 6 ethernet cable, built the NAS, and just run with that now.

 

[CharlesH]

What do other video shooters use? I mostly use Vimeo, and YouTube just a little. But I hardly ever share to the world, just friends and family, and usually use password protection.

 

[Markuswelder]

What do other video shooters use? I mostly use Vimeo, and YouTube just a little. But I hardly ever share to the world, just friends and family, and usually use password protection.

I don't shoot video, but I'd much rather watch it on Vimeo than YouTube. Don't know why, it just seems a bit more pure, less commercial there than YouTube for some reason. Not helping you at all, just adding a couple of thoughts really

 

[CharlesH]

I don't shoot video, but I'd much rather watch it on Vimeo than YouTube. Don't know why, it just seems a bit more pure,

YouTube is free to post, where you pay for a Vimeo account to post.