I took up photography seriously again in 2008. In the intervening sixteen years aspects of the way I photograph, some of my thinking about photography and some of my expectations around photography have changed. In this - irregular - series I identify the what and the why of those changes. In this second post I explain why I stopped looking for approval. Each post is accompanied by a random photograph or two from those sixteen years.
I Don’t Look for Approval
While I have never been overly obsessed with this, there was a time when I posted on social media and photo sharing sites hoping that people might see my pictures and say nice things about them or at least click a button to indicate their approval.
Then I deleted everything, closed the photo sharing accounts and got off social media. Now I post my pictures on my website, this blog, Flickr and one forum I’ve been posting to on and off for more than a decade. Occasionally, I get sucked back into the social media circus. I only post selected photographs on my website, while using Flickr as a space to post those images that are too good to delete but not good enough for the website. For a while, though, earlier this year I started adding my Flickr photographs to an increasing number of Flickr groups, checking regularly to see how many ‘views’ and ‘faves’ they had accumulated. Thankfully, this was only a brief relapse and after a few weeks I caught myself on and left all the groups I had joined.
While for some people, ‘likes’, ‘followers’, ‘friends’ and the rest are useful marketing tools, I suspect for many photographers they are a form of external validation that may reflect a lack of confidence in their own work, and in their ability to judge their own work.
There’s nothing wrong with external validation - or external critique - if the person doing the validating or critiquing is a knowledgeable, experienced photographer whose work and opinions you respect. Many of us have submitted pictures to specific photographers, whose work we respect, for a portfolio review. But that is not what happens on social media. Instead, photographers seek the validation of random, anonymous individuals they do not know, whose opinions are formed in an instant as a fleeting succession of images scroll by. This is a strange way to assess the merits or value of your work.
During my recent flirtation with Flickr groups I was shocked one morning to find that one of my images (below) had reached over 4,000 views and over 100 ‘faves’, making it around ten times more popular than any of my other pictures on the site. It turned out that Flickr had selected the image for its daily ‘explore’ feature. Yet this level of ‘approval’ did not translate into any real engagement with my photographs. Instead, people scrolling on Flickr saw the image because Flickr pushed it into their feed. Some of those people stopped momentarily to click a star, then they scrolled on. Seeing the numbers climbing might have provided a brief boost to my ego, but told me nothing, absolutely nothing, about my photographs or about me as a photographer.
Worse still, chasing the numbers - and chasing them successfully - might seriously limit your potential as a photographer. If photographers constantly seek social media approval for their work, I think it is inevitable that this will shape what they photograph and how they present those photographs. The development of their photographic vision and practice will be driven by the desire for the approval of the social media crowd.
Affirmation is nice, but maturing as a photographer means maturing in your ability to judge the worth of your own images. If the worth of your images is determined by the opinions of Instagram or Flickr users, you will never develop the capacity to judge your own work effectively.
So, I don’t seek approval. For me, if I like a picture it’s a good picture. The rest of the world is perfectly at liberty to tell me its rubbish but, honestly, I don’t care, and nor should you. If you want approval, if you want critique, seek it out from those you know and respect. Then use that critique to shape your own personal photographic vision.
"I don’t seek approval. For me, if I like a picture it’s a good picture" is a good way to live by, Olli :)
I've posted my photos on 500PX, DeviantArt and probably some others I long forgot before, but it never really did anything for me. It was nice if someone actually wrote a comment, but after a while they where nothing more than a "cool pic!" type of response. Hardly any better than a Like or Star or Heart.
I no longer do Likes and Hearts and whatnot. Doesn't mean I didn't like what I saw, but if I want to show my appreciation or have something I want to share, I write a comment.
Very helpful for one's own self worth and less annoying