I have had a month now of trying to use Instagram consistently and am really impressed with the positive vibe and enjoyment I get from sharing my photographs. Like many of us I am sure I have tried quite a few other sites to share your photographs and how do you know which is the best. Below is a short summary of the ones I use.
Where do I share my photos?
Most of us want others to see our pictures and give us a bit of feedback. I have tried a few different sites but have currently settled on Instagram.
Instagram for interacting with photographers
I am pretty new to Instagram in terms of taking it seriously the current plan is to post at least one photo a day. Doing this I have seen a quick rise from about 50 followers to the late 200’s. I also love following amazing photographers and find them so inspiring. What I really love about Instagram is the interaction, you really do get to feel like you know some of the people – not in a creepy stalker kind of way. Most pictures will get at least some comments and if you interact others will too. I also love the simplicity of it, few ads, no one else’s rubbish just the people you follow. I have totally given up on Facebook because it too annoying – you won’t see it in this list. So far so good I hope I can keep it up as it does take a bit of time that is for sure. You can follow me as the @afterworkphotographer or check out my feed here Instragram:theafterworkphotographer
Flickr for sharing photos
Flickr was my first go. I like Flickr a lot for how your photos look, but getting any decent engagement I found really tricky. Having a lot of followers wasn’t so important but I did want some feedback. So many comments were just a cut and past of a group logo. That lets you know they liked your photo but not much else. I also just found it time consuming to go through all the people I chose to follow so really did not engage enough with it. I still like it and put photos up but I don’t worry too much about exposure. Its great when you are new though as you often can get a photo explored on Flickr – the rush of likes is quite fun. Check out my Flickr stream here Flickr:SandyBrinsdon
SlickPic for sharing albums
The other site I use a lot is SlickPic. A much less well known site but I use it particularly for sharing photos with a group of people. When recently we took photos at the finish line of the Big Easy Mountain Bike race we could quickly and easily put all the photos up for competitors to see and download (in this case). You can also just show off your photos like Flickr but the audience is a lot smaller. The really positive thing about sharing photos on SlickPic is that no one has to go and create a log in to see them. Check it out here SlickPic:Sandy Brinsdon
WordPress for a personal touch
Building this, my own website, has been quite a lot of work helped by a tech savvy teenager. Websites are supposed to be easy to do these days but it is not true if you are even slightly particular about what you want. This website remains a work in progress but is a really nice place to share some stories and pictures. Over time it will be great to get some real interaction happening on this site. In the mean time it is great place for me to capture what is of interest at any given time.
Townske for short blogs
I discovered Townske while organizing our trip overseas a year ago. It was such a beautiful site to look at and also has loads of great advice in easy bite-sized blogs. We discovered out of the way places that we would never have found only on the tourist trail. I loved it so much and found it so easy to use that I have continued to make travel guides (as they call it) for them. In 2016 I was fortunate enough to win a competition with them and spent 5 days in Tahiti with 6 others traveling around taking photos and writing content – amazing experience. Check it out here Townske:SandyBrinsdon
Travelpod for long blogs
The oldest platform I have used is Travelpod. This started with family travel blogs many years ago. It is like a walk back through time and while my photography has changed a lot over that time my love of writing blogs is still the same. The family still loves going back to look at these and the technology has changed and improved over the years. See where we have been travelpod:Brinvincibles