To shoot or not to shoot?

SimonL said

It's interesting, following a comment from Unfocussed Mike, that X/Twitter (whatever) has now made it so people don't see follower numbers or likes in the interest of peoples Mental Health. Is that the way forward?

Whether it's the way forward for the individual posts, I don't know. But I see no strong reason why we should score the _people_ that way. And yet we do, and there are economies built on it -- publishers who will no longer take on authors with a small social media following, promoters who don't risk anything on artists with a small following, etc.

I know a phenomenal musician who is stuck really in a spiral of trying to see if individual gigs boost follower count. Not because they want to, particularly, but because they have to.

Unfocussed Mike said

SimonL said

It's interesting, following a comment from Unfocussed Mike, that X/Twitter (whatever) has now made it so people don't see follower numbers or likes in the interest of peoples Mental Health. Is that the way forward?

Whether it's the way forward for the individual posts, I don't know. But I see no strong reason why we should score the _people_ that way. And yet we do, and there are economies built on it -- publishers who will no longer take on authors with a small social media following, promoters who don't risk anything on artists with a small following, etc.

I know a phenomenal musician who is stuck really in a spiral of trying to see if individual gigs boost follower count. Not because they want to, particularly, but because they have to.

That's as sad as fuck! 😔

JPea said

We have two different groups of people in this discussion.

Those with Pippa who need exposure on Social Media and such for business reasons and then the other group in two sub groups.

Those who need Social Media to give approval and meaning to their work and those who like their work to be seen by somebody.

Perhaps a few outliers who just enjoy the making of an image.

I am in the last group and I am at the moment enjoying my photography and doing as much as my ancient aching body can cope with.

Like yourself, I am rotting due to age :)

Normally internally driven to do things, however beating the IG system would give me some satisfaction.

Huw said

Pippa. said

Just to make it clear, my point about ‘not being able to post on Instagram, and not seeing the point in nude work’ was a personal reflection for my own work and not of others, so please do not take this personally.

Edited by Pippa.

Thanks for joining in. I did try to link you, but our internet didn’t cooperate.

I have a profile on IG specifically for BW Art nude pics. 
Very tame. The IG AI flags them in about 30 seconds and limits my reach.

Work needs to be seen. Probably. Or maybe the work is the point, not the results.

You could try The Model Society? https://modelsociety.com/ They are dedicated to champion the work of artistic nude creatives.

There are only a few here who seem to like what I do, and I very much appreciate their "likes" and comments, but I've long since resolved myself to the fact that my work doesn't appeal to many. My images tend to be neither Mainstream nor Commercial - but then I quite enjoy being a bit unconventional and "Marching to the beat of a different drummer". 

I've noticed a definite trend of models who only seem to be looking to shoot "pretty pictures" to impress their followers on social media and agree that this has diverted the direction of modelling - of course, that's fine if that's what they want to do, but it doesn't do much for me.

Personally, I'm only on IG (relatively recently) in order to have a SFW outlet to display some of my images.

Edited by Simon Cole

Aardvark🎯VonEssfolk said

Unfocussed Mike said

SimonL said

It's interesting, following a comment from Unfocussed Mike, that X/Twitter (whatever) has now made it so people don't see follower numbers or likes in the interest of peoples Mental Health. Is that the way forward?

Whether it's the way forward for the individual posts, I don't know. But I see no strong reason why we should score the _people_ that way. And yet we do, and there are economies built on it -- publishers who will no longer take on authors with a small social media following, promoters who don't risk anything on artists with a small following, etc.

I know a phenomenal musician who is stuck really in a spiral of trying to see if individual gigs boost follower count. Not because they want to, particularly, but because they have to.

That's as sad as fuck! 😔

It's incredibly depressing.

I mean it has always been the case that promoters and venues prefer a level of commitment from young bands, like: can you bring a crowd and will they stay around for the whole gig, not just your set? Bands and musicians have always been expected to be able to command some following at a relevant size, so at some level social media will reflect that, I guess.

But the micro-managed detail of follower counts and post likes on social media has changed the nature of creative risk entirely. And even with the best will in the world, great venues and good promoters, everyone is trapped in this cycle: upstream is big companies still making large profits who now take less and less risk.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

I personally am not interested in what others do or think, that's their business, challenge and life.

I will help people when I can but don't particularly like it when they think they are entitled to my help, it is to be given to others, not demanded or expected by them.

This is my hobby, so hobby rules apply. I do it because I want to, don't require judgement unless I ask, I will continue until I decide otherwise. All quite simple.

Regarding social media I don't post or use IG, so can't comment on that.

The more I shoot, the better I get. If I'm worried about excelling in a competitive market, I ought to be shooting more often rather than less!

I shoot because I absolutely love it. Both in front of and behind the camera. Sometimes it's for work, sometimes it's for the fun of it, and I'm never gonna stop :)

This does have me thinking actually about one of the things we don't often talk about regarding social media, which is that it didn't rely on "tastemakers", kingmakers, critics etc., in the same way.

What we gained was the massive open visibility of work, the ability to find our own audiences, to "break out"; many of the really big successes in social media (Fallout Boy and Sandi Thom, for example) exist because of that flatter field with fewer tastemakers and gatekeepers.

But this sort of fucked-up-egalitarian idea that if you logged in and looked at the ads, you had the same access as anyone else, has faded, and the value proposition is disappearing with AI and with fake posts. And we now absolutely have tastemakers (influencers) again. Just loads of them rather than a few contentious but probably useful ones.

The Portrait Cowboy said

The more I shoot, the better I get. If I'm worried about excelling in a competitive market, I ought to be shooting more often rather than less!

The economics of it is we should be shooting more and posting less of it, I think -- more work, more selectivity. 

Difficult to stick to in what seems to be a volume/frequency/regularity war now.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Huw

"My preferred “art form” is/was the large BW print. Nudes in the landscape.

Obsolete now."

Why obsolete? That's totally the sort of thing I love.

Unfocussed Mike Yeah you know that's actually a pretty good point too. I think the onus of posting a multitude of shots from one shoot is probably more about perceived value for time/costs, etc. But you're right in that actually the more selective somebody is with the shots they get, the more artistic value the images hold.

Unfocussed Mike And the point about regularity comes from social media where it rewards content that is posted regularly, whereas posting infrequently doesn't give your content as much traction with the algorithm. Because, obviously, these platforms want you to be posting all the frickin' time and so adjust your exposure relative to frequency of posting. Social media is fucking evil.

You have to love the irony in life. IG, Facebook etc. dont accept anything nude, topless etc. yet families go into art galleries like The National Portrait Gallery, Tate etc or National Trust properties like Petworth House and other grand houses where countless oils, water colours, sculptures etc show both the female and male nude. Even in the Vatican museums they have nudes of every description. 

Only last week I watched a mother with two children between 5 & 8 walking around the gallery in Petworth House where as well as the painting is a line of male nude sculptures leaving nothing to the imagination.