Is Social Media a Blessing or a Curse for Photographers?

Photography Tips

Social media has been a blessing to photographers, who are now able to more freely showcase their work to the world. It’s also a platform to collect feedback, gauge public opinion and and also critique one another’s work. This can, however, have a negative effect: some photographers end up posting images just to please the masses. In today’s video, photographer Thomas Heaton shares his feelings on this subject and explains how social media can be a trap:

All the likes, shares, subscriptions and retweets we get receive work as a means of instant gratification. We can become so influenced by them that we tend to evaluate our own work based on what others like, rather than our own artistic preferences. We’ve all taken images we liked, but didn’t share—because we didn’t think it would be popular. This is the trap of social media that you should avoid at all costs. As Heaton puts it:

“Do what you do—not what you think will be popular.”

So think about it and evaluate if you too have become a victim of this thought process. And if you have, it’s time that you start making your way out of it and continue doing and sharing what you love.