It’s #TravelTuesday and I, Dave Williams, am here as always, this week from somewhere along the German / Dutch border.
Photography can be as social as you want it to be. We can meet up and interact with others, or we can stick to ourselves and photograph in solitude. We’ve got the world of social media to use as we wish but lately the top photo-centric platform has been up to a few tricks. Let’s take a look at that.
In a statement released by Instagram recently they expressed that they would be making some changes to get themselves up to speed with what the users wanted. They were mocked for attempting to emulate TikTok and there was outrage across their platform and others, as well as on all the photography news sites. The company released another statement soon after to say they’d heard the complaints and would be giving users more of what they want, reversing some changes. In either case, Instagram is a platform that we can use to be more social with our photography, interacting with one-another and sharing our work.
Flickr, SmugMug, 500PX, and plenty of other platforms exist and serve similar purposes where we can be social photographers online, but after the global pandemic that made a lot of us realise how important it is to be social in the real world, Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk is back this year and is about two weeks away. Getting together with other like-minded people to share skills and network is incredibly valuable. If you want to get involved you can find a walk near you.
I’ve led a few walks and attended others and I have to say, they’re incredibly fun and you can get from them exactly what you want. If you want to make new friends, you can. If you want to build your portfolio and learn new skills, you can. If you want to network and connect with other photographers, you can. You can take as many or as few photos as you like, and you can go sit down and have a coffee (or a beer) with your fellow walkers afterwards. Overarching the entire global event is the charitable element – the Springs Of Hope Orphanage in Kenya will benefit from the donations of good people such as yourselves, making it a double-whammy of an event.
However social you want to be with your photography, there’s a solution for you out there.
Much love
Dave
