I am looking for some advice. I currently don’t have any photography social media accounts, but I would love to start sharing my nature and landscape photos. My main goals are to share my passion, connect with others, and most importantly, receive constructive feedback from other users so I can learn and grow as a photographer.
I’ve been looking into several platforms (Flickr, 500px, Behance, Vero Social, YouPic, Pixelfed, Instagram, etc.), but I’m having a hard time choosing.
Here are my thoughts on some of them so far:
Instagram: It feels a bit too chaotic and overly commercial. I also worry that the “lifespan” of a posted photo is too short because of the fast-moving algorithm.
500px / Behance: The quality is amazing, but they seem heavily geared toward high-level professionals, whereas my work is strictly amateur.
Since iNaturalist is great for science but not designed for artistic critique, I wanted to ask you:
Which social media platforms do you use to share your aesthetic nature and landscape photos? What has your experience been like, especially if you consider yourself an amateur looking to improve?
I’ve joined them all at one time or another… and left them all. The only traditional social media that I’ve found meets even remotely what you’re after is Facebook, but limited to a very few specific groups. I’m a member of an online photographic club which is the perfect antidote to social media and would meet your requirements perfectly, but it’s a paid club so I don’t think it would be right to publicise it here. If you think you might be interested, let me know and I’ll give you the details in a private message.
Thanks for the advice, can I ask you the reasons for leaving the various social media? Unconstructive criticism, spam, arrogance from users, or something else? I have a personal Facebook profile but I avoid using it, I follow a few photo groups but I don’t know if it’s the best tool..
I think it depends very much on what you’re hoping to get out of sharing on social media. For example, Instagram used to be an effective way of getting your images seen, but since it was acquired by Meta (in about 2012 if I remember rightly) it has become much more algorithm driven and now you really have to invest a LOT of energy and time if you want visibility. Because of its nature, it also tends to favour images with more immediate popular appeal, which aren’t necessarily the “best” images… and you’re very unlikely to get any feedback, other than a “like” or a “nice image” sort of comment. Posting just on your own Facebook profile or page is much the same, but if you hunt around, there are a few FB groups where if you’re lucky you can find useful and constructive comments, but it’s a minefield. There’s a great deal of arrogance and (it has to be said) downright rudeness out there and it all seems to come out when people are safely behind a screen, so it can really knock the self-confidence out of you. I used to use Flickr, but I never quite understood what it was about. I don’t think there’s much community feedback there, but I could be wrong, maybe other users can help you on this. I have dabbled in others, but they didn’t convince me enough to stick around, so I can’t really comment.
Another vote for Bluesky. A lot of scientists that left Twitter when it became toxic and X moved to Bluesky. Also, and quite similar, Mastodon likely has some good photography groups and isn’t toxic.
I’m really glad there are social spaces that are less toxic and less frantic than the likes of X, TikTok, and others. I didn’t even know about Mastodon, but I checked it out and I really like the idea. For now, I’ve opted for an account on Flickr (I think I created one 15 or 16 years ago, but the login info and email are lost forever…) to use as a ‘portfolio’, and let’s see if I can find some good groups where people want to grow and learn (I’ve seen way too many destructive and bitter comments on FB…). I’ll try to take a look at the others too, but without overdoing it, otherwise keeping up with all the profiles turns into a full-time job!"
I think it depends on what you are looking for in a forum. for example, I have a Sony camera, and I like this Sony forum site https://www.alphashooters.com/community/ . It has forums for different types of photography as well. (note it is not an Official Sony site).