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Where/ how you choose to share your images online ?
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Hi, wondering what people use to share images online, what fits their needs, or what their needs are.
Right now, I use 500px, which serves as somewhere I can place highly selective work, but am looking for somewhere that I can use to keep pace with more frequent shooting, more as a sort of visual diary, I suppose, to keep constantly uploaded what I’m shooting currently. Also an element would also be somewhere to act as a carrot to shoot more.
Of the biggies, I’ve ruled flickr out simply as I do not like the move to an advertising model, as well as facebook, as although I don’t plan on uploading images more than about 800px long, I don’t trust their machiavellian overtures towards claiming ownership now or in the future over your images. Google+ seems to get a lot of good press, but thus far I’ve been loathe to put too much personal information like my full name out there, which Google+ seems to require.
I like 500px, but guess I treat it like a place to post finished/ final images, as opposed to somewhere that can act as more like a contact sheet for me, which is what I’m really seeking right now. Overall as a service, I like 500px a lot, although if pushed to point out something I would change, it would be that all thumbnails of my images were not cropped square. In all, I haven’t used it as much as I thought I would, and my subscription is up in July, so am keeping an open mind also should anything prove itself more suitable.
Ipernity is somewhere that has crossed my path, and intend to road test it a little, and see if I like it enough to subscribe. On the face of it, it would seem to be everything flickr probably should have been visually, as well as offering groups etc.
Interested in your thoughts, on where you use to share your images, what fits your needs best perhaps.
Feel free to share links to your own online presences also by the way, mine right now are in my signature.
EDIT: Thinking outloud, if I could find somewhere that would offer me a photostream I could opt only to include images I deem strongest, while making everything else available in folders, as well as some sort of photographic community element, I suspect that would be probably ideal..
i tend not to put my work online….
for one thing as a lot of my photographs are analogue i tend to (if I) scan to edit for printing and thats it.
i did for a while put them up here for critique but that lost its appeal after a while. in order to do this i joined Flickr but not wanting to have to trawl the internet to make sure the images didnt go astray I kept everything private and didnt really join in that community. I do not post on Facebook either as i have trust issues where that is concerned. i do have a google plus page but have never posted any images.
For quite a while now i have been thinking of starting a blog with low res images as much as an online portfolio as anything else, I have found that i often get asked when introduced to gallery persons if there is anywhere online they could look at my work. ashamedly i always say ‘no not at the moment.’
i prefer the physical world to the virtual one… Im not entirely comfortable with it and having just read dallans post regarding image theft I’m not getting any more relaxed.
Yes, I can understand all those points Isabella, and where you are coming from. Ultimately I think most of us will have to make our peace with online sharing, or rather find our happy balance, so as to be able to balance the benefits of using the web in this regard, versus the risks we are comfortable with. Of course, many great photographers opt out entirely as it is their prerogative to do, but think probably the photographers and the web are both the poorer for it.
My own personal peace involves restricting images to a low res size of 800 pixels on the longest side, figuring that such a small image is worthless for quality commercial print reproduction. Of course 800 pixels is more than fine for web usage/ illustrative purposes like accompanying articles, so accept the images I do post may and probably will be stolen at some point, and while I would not encourage that, I am happy to accept the risk of that, as long as I can avoid ‘big’ commercial mis-usage of any images. Additional points for me, would be accepting some people will never pay for images under any circumstances, as well as knowing those with more to lose online, ie commercial media, can be pursued for unauthorised usage. In any case, I think this can be all intensely personal, so the above is only my considered philosophy for my needs, and what someone else may be comfortable with may be something else entirely.
Re: scanning, if you do have a completely analogue workflow, ie film to wet print, any inexpensive flatbed should be up to the task of scanning prints, if you were ever inclined to put any of your work online. Re: galleries, even if you did not wish to put your work publicly out there, putting it up in non-public password-protected folders, and giving the person you wish to share your work with the password, might be an option to consider. I know many professional photographers operate this way, while keeping their work off the web publicly.
In any case, should you reconsider sharing your work online one day, perhaps this thread might be a useful pointer towards some good places to do so :)
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