Reflecting on my Photography

After discussing and reflecting on my photographs with my teacher, we decided that some weren’t quite to the best of my ability. This included some fashion photos that were slightly soft in areas or just deemed not appropriate for this project.

Due to these technical problems, where photos aren’t quite as good as I had hoped, I have planned another photoshoot. This shoot will be in a studio, because this is something new to me that I want to try and will allow me to focus more on the fashion aspect, which is something that my teacher felt was lacking in some of the above photos.

We also discussed the use of cigarettes in photography, which my teacher ultimately deemed inappropriate because, often, if a photograph is going to be used for official reasons, cigarettes won’t be included.

Furthermore, some of my night time photos also need re-shooting. These are from blurriness, framing or because of problems with the lens. All these issues mean that my photos didn’t come out as planned, and new photos will need to be taken. The hardest part about shooting at night, I found, was keeping the camera completely still while taking the photograph. For night time photography, the shutter speed needs to be at least about 5 seconds, of course depending on the scene, to allow enough light to reach the lens. This means that the camera needs to be held completely still, because any movement will be shown through the final photograph – hence why a tripod is incredibly important for late night photography.

Presentation Problems

Initially, I uploaded my images to a website called Unsplash. Here, I added a description to every photo, added various ‘tags’ to try and reach a wide audience, and added the location of most photos. I talked in previous blogs about how I wanted to upload my photos to a professional photography site, as this would reach my intended audience of 16-24 year olds – particularly those that choose to view photography content online. I did, however have to change to Instagram instead, as Unsplash removed almost half of the images I uploaded for breaching their guidelines on quality. Fortunately, my contingency plan was to use Instagram instead. This is because it has over 1 billion users and is still incredibly popular with the photography community. It also means that my work is easily accessible for millions of different people, and so I will likely get more interactions than if I used Unsplash.

For my Instagram post, I posted each one with different hashtags. This is because, according to website ‘Bluffer’, using as many hashtags as possible is the best way to get interactions.

This is important in particular for my account because it is a brand new account that, of course, starts with no followers. Using hashtags such as #photography means that people with similar interests, that are likely to be searching and using that hashtag, will easily find my account. This will lead to more interactions.

I am going to upload my Instagram posts by genre. Each day, for three days in a row, I will upload ten pictures from one genre. This is because I don’t want to upload 30 images all at once, as this could be seen as spam by my followers and each image will likely receive little interaction. By only uploading ten at once, each image will receive more attention.

 

At time of writing, since I created my photography account on Instagram, the profile has had 134 visits. Five out of six of my most engaged-with posts are architecture photos, which tells me that this particular genre is my most popular. I also received comments on some photos complimenting my work.

A lot of my night time photos were some of my least liked images. This tells me that this is an area for improvement – whether it’s lack of preparation (not having suitable items for different types of weather, which, in this case, included rain), or if I need to sort out the camera settings and exposure triangle properly, there are changes that could be made for the next time I do night time photography.

I know I reached my target audience (of those aged 16-24, and also photography enthusiasts) because of the types of accounts that like my images. Through the use of hashtags (particularly “#photography”), I reached a wider audience. On my most liked photo, exactly half of the likes were from accounts on Instagram specifically for photography. This shows how,through the use of social media and a public profile, hashtags can reach anywhere around the world.

Below is a link to my Instagram photography account:

https://www.instagram.com/photography_fmp2/?hl=en

 

References

Buffer Marketing Library. (2019). How to Use Hashtags: How Many, Best Ones, and Where to Use Them. [online] Available at: https://buffer.com/library/a-scientific-guide-to-hashtags-which-ones-work-when-and-how-many [Accessed 15 May 2019].

Changing Photos

Some of my photos didn’t turn out exactly as I planned. For example, one of my fashion photos was described as “a shot of the subject with her hands on her hips, stood with her feet shoulder-width apart in the middle of a road and with the subject looking directly at the camera”.

In this case, however, I decided the final image where she is looking into the distance looked better than her looking at the camera. This was simply down to the poses that the subject was doing at the time and how both images looked as the final outcome. I didn’t want to limit myself to using a photo that I believed wasn’t my best purely because it was matched the description that I created weeks in advance.

Unsplash to Instagram

After uploading all 30 of my photos to Unsplash, a professional photography site, I wanted to give them some time to get interaction. Later in the day, I checked back to see if they had gained any interactions (such as downloads or views) but they had in fact been removed by the site. 13 out of the 30 images I uploaded had been removed, and after checking me email I found that the reason was:

Luckily, I created a contingency plan. This is where I discussed what site I would use if there were any problems (such as this). This means that I have now set up an Instagram account based around photography that I will post my 30 images on. As I have created my account as a business account, I will be able to monitor ‘insights’ such as how many people the post has reached and how many times each image has been saved.

Using Instagram still has a lot of advantages: it’s easily accessible to billions of accounts and it’s also a site created to share photographs so it is basically designed for me to upload my images and get feedback. Whilst lots of people use Instagram for pictures of their daily lives, there are still thousands of photography accounts on the site that use it specifically for their professional photos. At time of writing this, if I look at the hashtag “#photography” on Instagram, there are 438 million posts that have used that tag. This shows that there is a massive audience on this site specifically for photography. Furthermore, I wanted to keep my photography posts online, because I know this is the best way to reach a wide audience. This large number of posts is proof that anyone in the world can reach and see my photography by posting it to Instagram.

Whilst it’s very inconvenient that my images were taken down, because of my organisational skills I can implement my back-up plan and still continue to get feedback on my photos.

Target Audience

Deciding on the target audience for my project will be difficult because of the three different themes that I am doing for my photographs. Potentially, each theme may have a different audience. Despite this, photography is a hobby and interest of people from various different backgrounds and ages. This means that any form of photography can potentially reach a wide audience, particularly if it’s posted on the internet. Here, many people can view and explore different niches, regardless of what demographic they are part of.

This is why I have decided that to best reach my target audience I will need to present my work online. There are a few different ways to present my work to an audience online: on social media (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, YouTube, etc), or on professional photography sites such as Unsplash, 500px and Pixieset. These sites allow me to upload and post a host of photos and allow an audience to view the photos.

Essentially, my target audience is anyone that is interested in photography, which, as I said before, can be anyone from any demographic. However, because I want to present my work online, and especially because one of my themes is fashion – where I am focussing in particular on teenagers and young adults’ daily fashion choices – I think that my main target audience is those between the age 16-24. Presenting my work online will be the best way for me to reach my target audience.

Personally, I think the professional photography sites would be the best place for me to upload my work. Here, people that want to see my work can do, and it will allow people that have a specific interest in my photography themes to look at my work, as people with these interests are more likely to go on to these professional sites looking for these types of photos.

This graph shows the percentage of users and their ages on Instagram. This tells me that almost two thirds (65%) of users on Instagram are between the age of 18-34. Almost a third (32%) are in the age of my target audience, with another unspecified percentage that will be between the age 16 or 17. As of June 2018, Instagram has 1 billion users. This means that, now, there are over 320 million 18-24 year olds that use Instagram.

Reaching a wide audience is important, but not as important as reaching the intended target audience. This is why, despite the impressive figures that Instagram boasts, I still believe presenting my work on a professional photography site will be more beneficial for my project, allowing me to reach a more niche audience.

Contingency Plan

If, in some way, there are some problems with uploading to a professional site, then I will upload my pictures to Instagram instead. This is because there is still a large audience on this site and I know, having used it myself, that it’s reliable for uploading photos. There is no limit to the amount of posts you can make and if you set up the account as a business account, you can monitor views, saves and likes.

 

References

Hull, C. and >, M. (2019). Top 20 Photography Websites 2019 | Photography Tips | Inspiration. [online] ExpertPhotography. Available at: https://expertphotography.com/top-20-photography-websites-2018/ [Accessed 26 Mar. 2019].

Statista. (2019). Instagram: age distribution of global audiences 2018 | Statistic. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/325587/instagram-global-age-group/ [Accessed 26 Mar. 2019].

The Verge. (2019). Instagram now has 1 billion users worldwide. [online] Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17484420/instagram-users-one-billion-count [Accessed 26 Mar. 2019].

Help.instagram.com. (2019). Set Up an Business Account on Instagram | Instagram Help Centre. [online] Available at: https://help.instagram.com/502981923235522 [Accessed 26 Mar. 2019].