All photographers want to get their photographs out there,
to get exposure and gain popularity. One of the best ways to do this is through
a photo sharing site. But there are so many sites out there! Which one should
you pick? Every photo sharing site has their own benefits and downfalls, and it’s
good to know about these before choosing which site to upload your photographs
to. You don’t want to be caught off-guard by privacy settings, low quality
images or copyrighting. So I am going to look at just a few of the benefits and
downfalls of uploading images to specific photo sharing sites.
First and foremost, let’s have a look at Facebook. As a
photographer, Facebook can be a great tool for displaying your images and getting
exposure. As the most popular social networking site out there (at the moment),
Facebook will provide you with a wide audience to show your work to and it is
easy to get feedback on that work. In addition, you can divide your private and
professional self by creating a photography page for yourself. This means that,
while you can post hundreds of photographs on your personal account for people
to see, you can also post your most professional photographs to your
photography page and have the best separated from the rest. It is a form of
advertising yourself which works out well, particularly if you decide to spend
some cash and invest in photography adverts on Facebook as well. This can lead
to a lot of business that you would not have received otherwise and can
certainly be worthwhile.
On the other hand, Facebook does have its downfalls. Many of
you may have heard about the mass of people leaving Facebook due to their
privacy settings. Some of you may even be those people who left in the mass
exodus. The privacy settings that affect your profile also affect your
photographs. While Facebook providing others with access to your personal
details may sound far more significant than hundreds and thousands of people
having access to your photographs (hell, that almost sounds good!) it also
means that your photographs are being exposed to people who may use them for
their own personal use. This brings the issue of copyright into question, and
you will quickly find that Facebook’s copyright protocols leave a lot to be
desired. And then, let’s look at the photographs themselves. Though Facebook
has recently introduced a new function, allowing you to upload high resolution
photographs, for a long while the photographs that you were uploading were
compressed to be very low quality. While this is fine for showing off photos
from the party last night, for professional photographers it is not ideal. A
lot of detail is lost in the process, and your photographs will not come out
the way that you pictured them. There are ways around this, but most people do
not know these methods. Hell, even though I know that they are out there, I
hardly know about these methods!
Facebook may be the most popular photo sharing site at the
moment, but that certainly does not mean that it is the best. Personally, I
still upload my photographs using Facebook for the exposure, but it is not my
only method of uploading pictures. At least I know and understand the risks and
problems, and even use them in some cases! Part of the reason why I continue to
use Facebook is that it can provide low-res and low-quality versions of my
photographs, giving me the exposure that I want, and I can then provide links
to better quality versions or, if requested, provide better quality prints of
the photographs. If someone wants to steal an image, it then means that they
are taking a low-quality image, one that I would not be too concerned about. It
is the high-res and good quality ones that I truly cherish.
Check back soon for the pros and cons of using other photo
sharing sites such as Flickr, Twitter and Google Plus.
