What Do You Do With Your Images?

[RichardC27]

Depends what they are. My motorsport stuff is shot for Paddock42.com, so I publish galleries on there. They also get posted on my Instagram and Facebook and I tend to do bulk uploads to Flickr every few months. I also have my own website with galleries from all the events I attend. For more personal stuff they tend to just get uploaded to my personal Facebook or I just keep them for me and my other half to enjoy. Occasionally I'll get the odd shot printed but not that often.

 

[Tobers]

Interesting answers. I suppose that I am a little different from the norm in this respect. By all practical measures I am now a professional photographer, though I still take a very amateur view of the world - if I don't think I'll enjoy it, then I won't do it.
....
Then I was "discovered", firstly by Thisiscolossal, an American blog.
It is quite special hearing David Attenborough doing the voice over for your footage.
And thirdly by some international mycologists and NGOs who wanted me to photograph fungi in their locations
Anyway, that's what I do with my photos. It has changed a lot over the last 18 years, as have the opportunities.

Bloody fasctinating - thanks for sharing your story. Can you give us a link to your pics please - I’d love to see them.

 

[Tobers]

I initially photographed for pleasure, joined a camera club, did the competition thing, posted on Flickr and here etc etc. I started wanting more so I focused on sport photography, working for a cool little agency and getting published in all the UK newspapers. I also did commercial and advertising work of varying sorts.

After shooting the 2014 World Cup in Brazil I chucked it in professionally to just shoot for fun again, mainly landscapes. This is lovely, calm and I love being out exploring.

But it’s rather different to the purposeful sending of pictures to newspaper picture desks and getting paid to shoot. It feels a lot less rewarding in one way, but a lot more rewarding in others. I often think “why take this picture if I’m not going to sell it to anyone”. I’m gradually getting out of that mindset and just enjoying it more again.

So now, I write occasionally on my blog, enter the odd landscape competition, do a family calendar, and post online every now and then.

 

[sands]

I have never aspired to be a pro nor an artist. I just enjoy my photography for what it means to me. So, I primarily post to Flickr. I've tried to post to Facebook and Google+, but they are set up to be primarily oriented to a smartphone. I only have a laptop. So, they have not been particularly useful to me. Because I don't aspire to sell my photos places like 500px and others like it don't really interest me. For the happy snappers that I think the majority of us are Flickr is the place to be, I believe.

 

[rjbell]

The family ones see the light much more than they used too since buying a echo show on prime day. It's linked to your unlimited prime image storage and gives you a slideshow.

The rest goes on Instagram or Facebook.

 

[Bollygum]

Bloody fasctinating - thanks for sharing your story. Can you give us a link to your pics please - I’d love to see them.

Thanks. I think it's a fascinating story and I can't really believe the luck I've had to be doing it. I know some people say that you make your own luck, but that is b******t.
The still photos are at https://steveaxford.smugmug.com/ . There are a lot of them, probably far more than if I was an art photographer.
For the time lapse, you will have to watch things like Planet Earth 2 and about 6 other documentaries, most of which haven't been released yet. Film producers like the wow factor of something new, so I can't show them around very much.

 

[Bollygum]

I initially photographed for pleasure, joined a camera club, did the competition thing, posted on Flickr and here etc etc. I started wanting more so I focused on sport photography, working for a cool little agency and getting published in all the UK newspapers. I also did commercial and advertising work of varying sorts.

After shooting the 2014 World Cup in Brazil I chucked it in professionally to just shoot for fun again, mainly landscapes. This is lovely, calm and I love being out exploring.

But it’s rather different to the purposeful sending of pictures to newspaper picture desks and getting paid to shoot. It feels a lot less rewarding in one way, but a lot more rewarding in others. I often think “why take this picture if I’m not going to sell it to anyone”. I’m gradually getting out of that mindset and just enjoying it more again.

So now, I write occasionally on my blog, enter the odd landscape competition, do a family calendar, and post online every now and then.

I know what you mean about "no pay = no good". I have to force myself to ignore the fact that few people like some of my favourite photos and even fewer will pay for them. I'll still take that sort of thing at every opportunity I get.

 

[soupdragon]

It struck me today that apart from sharing them here and Facebook, I don't really do a lot with my images. I've sold a few in my time and framed (I'm a bespoke framer) some for personal use. A friend at camera club said to me one time, "why don't you enter competitions, what else is there to do with them (meaning images)? I have entered competitions since but none recently. At the last check, my pictures folder had 89GB of images in it.

I know there's a few pros here, which speaks for itself but what about us keen amateurs, where do your images end up?

I delete almost all of them.

 

[Deleted member 88938]

Any good photos of Steam trains I usually send to railway magazines, put on my website and Facebook page.

 

[Dale.]

I've enjoyed reading this, thanks for the replies. It's very interesting and enlightening too.

 

[Sectionate]

Web display includes Facebook / Instagram / My own website / Forums

I also print some out and display them round the house and I also make the odd book every now and then.

 

[G4lly]

I don't do enough with them. Share them on instagram/flickr and not much else.
I really need to print some of mine and get some nice frames.

 

[Sam Tip]

Hello Dale. Personally I avoid Facebook but I've used a free WordPress site for several years now where I post my photos. I process RAW in ON1 with prints in mind but I'm very pleased how images look on tablets and laptops. I'm thinking of paying to be ad-free but WordPress's so-called autorenewal setup is putting me off.

 

[droj]

I don't do enough with them. Share them on instagram/flickr and not much else.
I really need to print some of mine and get some nice frames.

I daydream about living in a house that has a huge area of wallspace ... which is unlikely to come true. So I soldier on.

On-line attention is fleeting - in this digital age there's so much available, and you have to become your own editor as never before in terms of what you look at and for how long.

Off-line - if you have an exhibition, it only lasts a month or two. If you make a book, how often might the owner of a copy take it down and look at it?

Photography can have a private purpose - as a creative endeavour, and a way of marking who you think you are. That's valid enough.

Photography can have a family purpose - which is a bit more sociable than the above.

But I could say that if you spend thousands of pounds on equipment for either of the above, then in that department you might be a bit of a w****r.

Photography can have a public / social purpose. Which might function briefly, or come to be marked down in history as significant. In that context, what you might spend is irrelevant.

There's no doubt that it can be a communicative medium. How it communicates, despite the content, is about who's making it and who's looking. Culture has various departments. Crossover can be hard between some of them.

But always ask why. What's it for? Who's it for? Purpose is a key to cultural / human value.

 

[Nguss]

I look at mine at 300% in Lightroom to see how sharp they are.

But seriously i do print them either as books sometimes or individual prints.

 

[willkia]

I have my own Instagram page

 

[trevjm]

Apart from putting a few photos on my Instagram and Flickr pages I have always had my photos saved to umpteen hard drives and do nothing with them except occasionally re-edit them when I try out new versions of photo editors. I constantly craved new and bigger equipment and spent more and more money but simply filled more hard drive space. I sat down a couple of months ago and really thought about what was the point of it all and what did I want to achieve. As a result, I got rid of the expensive FF camera/lens system. Went back to the Fuji system that I love, saved some money and have now just taken delivery of a decent printer. I plan to use the money saved to get out and get some decent photos as well as having a go at printing out my favourites and filling a few spaces on our walls as well as hopefully boosting my desire to take better photos. I know I can do it, seeing it in print I am sure can only have a positive effect.

 

[Matt.]

I've been taking photos for many years now and never do a lot with them. For me photography is primarily a reason to go places and it helps give me reasons to travel around the world to see incredible places. I mainly use it to give me something to do as I hike around and I've met so many people whilst doing this. So in a way for me the enjoyment is in the taking of the photos and the fact I have something for the wall after is an added bonus. Other than Instagram I don't really put them anywhere online, but I do have many framed in the house, and I occasionally do calendars for family at Christmas.

 

[davholla]

I post them all to Flickr and Ipernity with different levels of privacy depending on what they are.
I put them on both to have back up, I also put some on Facebook. I almost never print them, I don't have the space.