Social media as a photographer.

It is 10:26 pm as I am writing this. The UK weather is slowly turning into Singapore’s which is perfect by me.

I believe social media has its great advantages when it comes to being a creative. First off, it provides a platform on which photographers, artists, cinematographers can post and showcase their work to an international audience and gain essential feedback and support. Personally I use Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube and a website to showcase my work.

There are two sides to the creative social media industry. There are the creatives who strive to grow through social media, and there are creatives who grow with social media. What I mean by this is there are some creatives on Instagram for example, who’s main goal is to just grow through there and potentially make a living through creating short form - interactive content that engages with a wide audience. There are the others, cinematographers, photographers whose goal is to achieve something outside of the social media world - producing movies, shooting celebrities, high-performance sports photography where their goal is to make a living through doing that, whilst using social media as a side project to show off their work. We can call this the Influencers and the UGC’s. I know that it they are not really Influencers or UGC’s, but it seemed to be the closest thing to them, and I will refer to them as that in the future. I think I lean more toward the UGC side of social media. I am not using social media as the primary way of growing as a photographer, more of a side quest where my main goal is to start a creative media studio where all creatives can hang out and craft lasting stories. This is probably why I never create short-form content like Instagram reels or Tiktok’s, I feel like those kind of things are a waste of talent and creativity - people just edit and post low effort content based on what’s trending. This is also why I love platforms like my website and Youtube. This is because with Youtube, I have full creative freedom to post my videos - and it provides an unprecedented way of sharing my best work - in the highest quality. With Youtube, I had the ability of sharing the entirety of my trip to Italy with a half-hour long video “Italia” which has been my best creative piece yet. You cannot achieve that with short-form content, there is just too little time to share everything and showcasing your best shots. Youtube also prefers the widescreen formats instead of the phone format which makes it easier for viewers and for editing as I don’t have to crop for 9:16. Youtube also reaches my target audience of people who actually care and have much longer attention spans - absolutely needed for watching a half-hour video fully. With short-form, people already lose interest in the few miliseconds of watching - even I have caught myself doing that. I am not writing this to show my hate towards short-form content - all I am trying to say is that other types of social media seem better for me and my style of work - long, cinematic pieces too long for Instagram and TikTok, but best for youtube and my website. With my website, I can also present my work how I always wanted to present it, and in my own style and taste. I opted for a more neo-retro minimalist design with a blend of serif and mono typefaces.

I believe that negative space is as important as the media you are showcasing. If you are not giving your images the space to breathe and cluttering up your site, people will get overwhelmed and you will not be showing your images to its full potential. I always like to think that I have showcased my images in an art gallery, giving each one ample space for its own display and caption - really giving each photo the love it deserves. I guess this is my way of styling a website, and if you like it and wish to do similar - I thank you for appreciating my taste. Please don’t take my advice too seriously, these are just tips and I have never created a website before - this is my first time.

Giving images ample space to breathe focuses audience more on that singular image.

If you are still reading, thank you. This is a shorter blog I guess quality > quantity?

For Grace, I’ll see you soon, you are still my #1.