Really wise words Sean. I think the best thing that Instagram could do is remove Likes. Images should be judged for what they are and the size of the crowd viewing them and liking them. I love sharing my work on Instagram but because I am proud of what I shoot and share at that time and not based on what number of likes I may get.
Trust me I get what you mean, Im not disagreeing but I think keeping likes helps with the algorithm and choosing what to put on someones feed. If their system just notices someone watching a post they wont know if the person liked the post or not so they wont know if they should be showing that same content to the person. This can come in our advantage just like you I take pictures im proud of but I would aslo like to share it with people and having those likes helps the algotithm know who to show my photos to, this is good cus it means that my content is going towards people who would actually enjoy it
I love the part where you say how you post images even when you know they are not going to be equally liked, simply because you like them or think they are important. I can totaly relate to that. The number of likes on my images vary from 1000+ to 30, and it has taught me to simply not care about the likes. It is actully a great exersise in personal development. Not that I am completely imune to less likes than expected, but I am on a good path to it I feel...
Yes! I support this thought. I've got to grow into someone who doesn't feel complete or incomplete from a number of likes. Thanks for sharing your thought.
Thank you for this impactful video. As a teen photographer, I know full well that if I simply followed a couple hundred of my classmates, I could get hundreds more likes and follows, but now I have decided to use Instagram as an online portfolio where I am simply sharing what I believe is my best photography. The social aspects are just a plus.
So glad to find you! What you say makes so much sense to me! Found your videos for first time today, you are carrying the answers to so many questions I had running wild in my head. So thank you so much for helping me finding more clarity and inspiring me to keep going along the path of my own self discovery as a photographer 🙏🏼
A very humble spiritual man. Every video is full of Pearl's of wisdom. Awesome images too. Keep it up! I don't think you realise how inspirational you are! Thank you
Exactly! I was thinking about that some years ago. I don't follows all these rules to be popular in IG, because you become someone else and less yourself. As in fashion, trends pass and you are stuck with what you have. Choose what you really want and that's it! Thank you for your videos.
Sean thank you for this , i follow you because it's like sitting at home listening to a mate in conversation , open, honest and interesting and i can relate to this all day long.
Thank you for putting this video together. Some of the things you talked about I'm doing but many I'm not, and I need to start. What you talked about everyone needs to hear, for me, it's a reminder that I'm using Instagram to showcase my work, not to have individuals to like me. Thank you again, and keep posting.
I got answers to my questions connected with photography I have had for years here in these videos. "It's because my followers liked this image"..I got this in the middle of me posting another image on IG and that made me think whether I need to. "feeding the audience" is another good phrase to think about.
From my experience, its just about getting out there and taking A LOT of photos. But tips like get low with your phone and doing bursts can help bring a unique persepective to your shots. Also, editing on your phone with apps like Snapseed (free) or Lightroom Mobile (comes with Adobe CC subscription) can help you improve the aesthetic of your photos. Editing on your phone means that you can practice your editing a lot more than if you only used a computer. Hope this helped! 😊 I've shot photos on my phone for about 2 years before i got my mirrorless camera a year ago. If you want to see some, check out my first 50 shots on my instagram (@lifeofkenta). [Its up to you]
It almost doesn't matter what equipment you shoot with or what you shoot. What's most important is the understanding of composition elements/ rules (balance, symmetry, contrast, visual weight, rule of thirds, golden circle, rectangle, guiding lines etc.)
@@kentaaruga4765 I just checked your Instagram, i LOVE your photos! i tried using snapseed, still have it, but it's too slow for me to edit it there and THEN upload it, dunno, personal opinion, maybe somebody can check me out at @damagatortuga and hand me some advice? I want to improve and hopefully turn this into something i can live out of or at least help me keep my head over water, mostly emotionally since it fills my heart to just freeze time and matter in an image.
I post my work. The things I like. I could use a bunch of hashtags to generate likes. I don’t need that because it might happen once. I place hashtags so people can find my images. With the algorithm who knows and it doesn’t matter. I thought of seeing what people like and post the same kind of subject. If I do that, I’m allowing other people to choose what I should be shooting. I need to evolve and learn. I also need to be inspired and get creative. So I will look to other works by other photographers. Social media is a tool. Some use it to show off. I don’t need to do that. I just take photos and post them. I follow you and a few others. I enjoy this channel because it has people thinking about photography and expression in photos rather than the latest gear. You do inspire others.
Sean...you are brilliant! You have become my life coach as much as a photography mentor. Your message is what I needed to hear today. Thank you for your channel.
It's great how your setting really makes the mood. The warm tones and couch makes it feel like a 20(ish) minute therapy session to keep us on the right track. Keep up the great work! 🍻
Perhaps the most important thing I have learned so far in photography from Ted Forbes (Art of photography) is setting yourself assignments/projects to complete. Find something that really interests you and work on it over a period of time, post these images ESPECIALLY if you know your "likes" will go down. Post work that you are proud of and keep learning.
Thanks Sean. No matter what the topic, what I end up learning is unexpected. I don't have an instagram account but wanted to better understand the platform. That did not happen for me, instead I now have a better understanding of how and why my own style is developing. Strangely, the photographers I have followed most closely have very different styles than what I prefer in my own work. Thanks for sharing!
Sean, what you are saying is so true! Especially the relevance between a talent and popularity on social media. Thank you for this talk and for your channel. You keep inspiring me!
I completely agree with your assessment of social media. My biggest complaint at the moment is that Instagram has become a commercial source invading our personal space. Alas, it is the way of the world. However, your thought process and humanity are the real inspiration, Sean. Regards...Wayne
Your are so refreshing to watch in a photography world of competitiveness and know-it-alls! I appreciate every one of your videos. #realtalk Thanks for sharing and inspiring!
Really enjoyed this video. One thing I'd recommend about curating is when you unfollow someone, look at the accounts you're following that are also following the account you're unfollowing. I sometimes get caught up in a look that I like for a bit and after a while I lose interest. So when I curate my feed, I also check out the other "followed by" accounts. Usually 5-6 of them are that look I'm no longer interested in and I unfollow them as well.
thats a dangerous path, thinking about photographers as 'good', 'not so good' or 'superior'. I could say I am a better photographer than ansel adams, just because my gear is better. anybody living in london could say he is a better photographer than me because he has more interesting stuff to photograph than poor old me in a german backwater village, any wedding photographer could say he is better because he makes (more) money with it. but finally, I allow only one person in the world to make that judgement: myself. this is something that I have learned from watching sean tucker videos for a while, or maybe something that I already knew before, but I was not so aware of it. and still, being appreciated by others is a great feeling. btw, there is one thing that I have learned to dislike on instagram: gratuitous praise, with only the return value in mind. my 2 cents ... great video as always ! have a nice day.
Really enjoyed this. I keep asking myself if there's a way to be a freelancer these days without being on these social media platforms. My complaints with IG aren't related to expectations. Instead, it's this idea that so many of us are ceding too much direction to these algorithms. This is obviously not scientific, but I think for so many of us these platforms have either rewired how we think and choose to engage or worse, dulled us a bit. But as you mentioned in the video, that's on us. I think I'll be watching this one again.
I was having breakfast by the beach and as always I have my XT3 with me.. And there’s a little boardwalk just enough for two people to walk side-by-side and went right on the beach and there’s an umbrella over us and all you see is their legs going by so I started shooting and I found it to be the most interesting photographs I think I have ever taken and I absolutely love it nobody really cared for it but I myself love it and that’s what matters.
Great presentation and 'food-for-thought' for photography in general. I hardly ever use instagram actually as I already am overwhelmed with social media systems but I reckon instagram is more for those are purely photographic centric as a social media rather then as an exchange for information, education and opinion. Maybe I will start to use it more frequently to showcase media I shoot although I hardly regard myself on the level of some of the more well-known names in the industry. Unlike in the days of film it is much more difficult to stand out, become differentiated in this digital sea of media. More, most importantly though is to become enthralled with what you shoot as a personal experience, share it with the world and if someone becomes inspired by what you present fantastic. in the same vein, as you presented you conversely will find people that inspire and challenge you, to learn and to mimic. Anyway, I am just a commoner when it comes to shooting like millions of others. Thanks again for this 'food-for-thought. Curiously, what equipment do you use in your own photography? No need to be ashamed either if you say smartphone. With algorithmic computational advancements in smartphone-based cameras along with lenses and zoom technological advances as well, there are smartphone models which increasingly are becoming very capable photographic tools with each passing year.
Very on point for me right now and I couldn’t agree with you more. This was such a fresh approach to handling Instagram. Love the other feeds you mentioned too, some new perspectives for me to grasp. Keep up the good work.
A great shout out to some really talented photographers Sean. I think we do tend to miss the little things which might just make for a great photo. Nice one buddy. Tony from London
Great video Sean Tucker. It's something very true that you have said on how one should assess ourselves and the content on social media. I also like how he ends the video with a pumping soundtrack and a slideshow of his work, giving off a motivational and inspirational vibe :)
If I may add a thought to this great video that has been going around in my head for a while, that would be: Don't be afraid to switch things up and deviate from your artistic comfort zone. I get the school of "if something works don't fix it", but if art is not a challenge then what's the point? There's more profit to the process than theres in any audience. - Cheers from Greece.
Looking at all those people instagrams made me feel like me work is too generic to me it feels like my work is a instagram post and I don’t want that can’t wait to take some more pictures with new ideas and perspectives on mind
You are cool beanz. I really liked your RU-vid Straight Talk video and this as well. I hate the way my mind stops being fun and creative when I only think about getting likes and views on youtube. I will be coming back to your two videos to remind myself that the likes and views aren't what matter when it comes to creating content. Thanks for your down to earth straight talk videos! :)
Thank you Sean - I just find you today ! I been watching you for about an hour !! !!! --- its what I need it -- love your work and I am ready to move on to shoot what really matter to me .
"Popularity does not necessarily signify mastery." Yes, but your example of Michael Bay is probably wrong. I believe he has mastered the type of films he produces. He has mastered the ability to create a giant blockbuster film that gets audiences to come back and line up for them. Not just any filmmaker can step and do what he does and garner the popularity he has. I think that mastery is relative to your end goal and medium. I would argue that Malick and Bay are in different categories and each has a mastery in their genre of the craft. I understand what your point is here, but thought I would just express that side of things. Thank you for your videos! They are a real help!
While trying to work out what "it" is about certain photographs, one suggestion is to permit yourself to describe the feeling synesthetically. In those @lumino photos, I can taste the dust, and smell the sour tang in the cloth. In the @ausland photos, I can hear the muffled silence between the light source and the lens - I'm transported into the frame and feel alone and giddy with cold and anonymity. Absorbing a photograph, as an audience to it, is a kind of successful time travel, freezing a moment in time and thawing it out to experience it later .. so you may need to borrow the vocabulary of your other senses in order to describe it. :)
I know that the best way to ascertain the quality of my work is by peer review with other Photographers that I respect. A better yardstick of quality than any amount of likes.
I have a philosophy along the line of 'I take pictures that I like or intrigue me, if other like what I choose to show on instagram (photell_images) then that's a bonus'. I'm ticking along at around 100 followers, but I will only follow those that inspire me, I will always take a look if someone asks, but there's no guarantee that I'll follow them (if their channel is full of selfies, then they definitely won't get a follow from me).
I love IG.. i only follow people I like ,who inspire me , who ive worked with . I find nearly all my models i work with on IG, Ive grown a great community in the 2 years Ive been shooting portraits/ fashion & presntly the IG algorithm is not being to kind not letting those who follow me see my posts but Im sure it will sort itself out . I post series's of images which tell a story & my audience/following seem to like this ..great thoughts Sean , you have a very similar philosophy to my own .
Great video, I've never used social media for attention, in fact I use it mainly as another method of storage, don't get me wrong I get a buzz from the odd positive comment but for me personally it is just a place where I can keep my photos as an additional back up, anything else is a bonus, keep up the great work my friend 👍👍
Good talk..photographers are as susceptible to the "The Cult of Personality" as other artists and entertainers and politicians and captains of industry are..
Thanks for this video. I can relate with every topic you covered here. I can't stand some photographers get recognition&likes just for who they are... or who they were. For example, I like Joel Meyerowitz, I mean, his old stuff. But he gets tons of likes in really generic pictures. Of course he has masterpieces but a lot of his pictures are just average. Even my shitty pictures get thousand of likes. By the other hand, I love a photographer called Edas Wong but he is getting just a bunch of likes. I didn't understand why this happens but I understood that it's not about taking good pictures but having a background or having a good engagement with your followers. Instagram is not a unknown judge. Also I noticed I'm making a mistake with my feed. I don't care about color consistency or a similar look/theme to all my photos. I shoot what I want, it's a knee-jerk reaction. In addition I upload only discarded photos. I'm keeping my best photos (in my view) for something bigger than a Insta account, for example, a zine. Maybe this is penalizing my account somehow. Lastly, thanks again for showing us some inspiring accounts. I loved Stuart Paton!
Can I just say its refreshing to come across a photographer who has a no bs approach to videos. No stupid intro, no in your face sponsorship, no go buy my presets. Just straight up honest advice. Well done, you've got a new follower.
He appeared on the fujicast podcast a while back, it's s good listen and worth subscribing to. It's not just about fuji either. Go check it out it's one of the best podcasts out there. www.fujicast.co.uk/
