The Online World

Until a couple of decades ago, the only way for fine art photographers to get their work before a wider audience was to have it published in a book or to exhibit it somewhere. Commercial photographers had to secure work through advertising or editorial channels. Either way, they required the approval of at least one other person before their images could be seen by anyone other than those who they could physically show their work to.

Will on-screen viewing force print production to go the way of the dinosaur?

Of course this has now all changed. Work can be published on the Internet by anyone with a reasonably fast connection to social networking sites such as Flickr, Facebook, and more recently (and it has to be said, more photographer friendly) Google+. Just putting the images up on these sites isn’t enough on its own to build a following, but the sites make it relatively easy to attract an audience.

Which direction now?

Many photographers also have their own websites because this gives them control over things such as layout and functionality. Building a professional-looking website used to be beyond those who couldn’t afford to hire a web developer or devote hours to learning the very complicated skill set required. Over the years this task has been greatly simplified by the success of various so-called platforms, but the one that really stands out is WordPress. It enables just about anyone to build and manage a first-rate website.

Of course, the online world may not be primarily about marketing for every photographer. The opportunity to communicate with other photographers and to share work easily at any time is almost unlimited. This speaks to something I have noticed over the past few years that I can see becoming even more pronounced, and that is the speed at which photographers develop and mature. The time between first picking up a camera and becoming extremely competent has been massively reduced. Whether this accelerated learning process causes photographers to mature faster as artists is open to debate. I suspect that still happens at its own pace. There is no doubt regarding technique, though. The ability to take limitless shots for free, view thousands of photographs by other photographers, and get feedback from others who share an interest accelerates the learning curve exponentially.