Tag Archives: social media

Connect

Hi everybody,

You may have noticed that over the last few weeks I have not been uploading an awful lot of my own work to this site and the related FaceBook page. And there is a reason for that. Apalled by the self centredness of many pages and accounts in the hunt for likes and follows, … I decided to contribute more to other sites and to share some more of other people’s work. One of these contributions was my contribution to Wild Eye’s weekly behind the frame post, which by the way generated a perfect example as per how not to provide feedback (yet more about that soon).  As I mentioned before, it’s all about giving and taking, a post that created some nice exchange in the recent past, coincidentally (or maybe not) with Marcelle Robbins whom also contributed to last week’s behind the frame post. Which brings me to another aspect, which has been raised many times before: it’s not about the amount of connections you have, yet about the quality of your connections, since those are the connections that give you the boost to keep on going.

Point is of course that all these interactions take time and that you have to weigh your time investment properly. For that reason it is important to have your social media linked. A great way of doing this from your FaceBook account is with Tradablebits. You may have noticed the new Twitter link and the RSS blog feed at the top of my FB page, great stuff and all for free, or at least, there are 4 aps you can install for free, well worth checking out.

I’ve also been creating a Google+ account, have contributed to several G+ themes (FYI today is African Tuesday and the shot in this post was my first contribution to that theme) and created a theme myself: Wild Kenya a visual ode to Kenya, it’s wildlife, landscapes and people and a way of sharing great shots from Kenya. More about Google+ in one of my next blog posts. All going well, the next one going live will be a guest post.

Canon 350D, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/800 ISO 200

And all that being said, in the near future I will keep on uploading stuff here, yet I will also work on trying to get some return on time investment, by adding an online shop to the site, creating a shutterstock account, trying to get some work to the newspapers (you may have noticed my cheetah shots in the Daily Mail), getting some nice business cards, …

And guess what: without it being the goal, giving back to the community by commenting on people’s posts and by sharing their work has actually earned me more likes and follows than I would have ever reached by just focusing on my own work, … think about it!

Warm regards,

Guy

 

It’s all about giving and taking

Hi everybody,

Last week I told you a bit more about my sleepy vervet monkey shot. This week, I want to share some thoughts on sharing. In photography, sharing can take different forms and serve different purposes, yet what it all boils down to is that there should be a balance between giving and taking.

Let me use the Wild Eye gallery and monthly competition an example.  They are a great platform for sharing, exchanging, learning, inspiration, … And that also goes for the competition, since getting selected is great, yet the proverbial participation is better. Since even when your images don’t make it, that doesn’t mean they are bad images, it just means they connected less to the mood of the jury at that point in time. Yet thinking about your submissions, seeing what others submit and learning from the judges in the end all boils down to giving and taking. You take, by getting inspired (by looking at the competition, which is getting stiffer by the month b.t.w.), by exposing your work, yet you can also give, by providing feedback to the work of others, or by creating exposure for them. Honestly, how cool is it when a 13 year old gets in touch with you and asks you to go through her pictures to provide some feedback, isn’t that what it’s all about?! A small effort from your side that can give somebody else just that little push which is needed, isn’t that great? I can tell you it made my day!

Canon 350D, Canon 75-300 @ 300mm, 1/500, f/8, ISO 200

Some of the sites I’ve been checking out to share my work include 1x and 500px. Some time ago, I was still wondering whether I liked 1x or not. By now I can tell you I don’t, since in my opinion, you do not want to be at the mercy of a curator when you want to create exposure for your messages. If (s)he doesn’t like your style, you will end up spending a lot of time in uploading pictures without any result, besides getting frustrated, or worse, moving away from your own style in trying to please the curator. Don’t go there, go for 500px instead, the quality of the work and the interaction with other photographers is great. And for those who use Lightroom, sharing has just been made easier, since you can post from Lightroom directly. And while you’re at it, you can do the same for Facebook and a bunch of other social media.

Another way of sharing I have just been exploring is Pinterest, you can check it out here and I would love to hear what you think about it. What I like about it, is that it allows you to gather a nice collection of work you like from across the web. Where I am not sure about it, is whether it gives sufficient credit to the photographer (not everybody mentions the photographer as I do), … I still havn’t made up my mind on this one. Have you tried it? Has it worked for you?

To finalize, let me share 2 inspiring wildlife and nature photography sites I came across recently, by Andrew Aveley and Isak Pretorius.

Enough for this week, look for quality interactions, share what you like, enjoy what you are doing and take it from there.

Warm regards,

Guy

PS: I have added an archives tab in the right hand column of the site to facilitate navigation amongst older blog posts.