Finding and appreciating work that inspires is an essential component to professional development. Finding work to pick apart, reverse engineer, and take pieces away that you may find useful in your own art is essential to not only understanding photography as an expressive medium, but crucial in the development of your own unique style.
Finding work that motivates us can be a challenge. Between social media sharing sites like Instagram and 500px to Agency sites representing professional photographers, here is a list of resources to help keep you inspired.
Instagram is probably the most widely recognized photo sharing platform. As a social media platform, users range from professionals to accounts filled with pixilated and blurry photos. Instagram, unlike many of the following sites, is not the photographer’s friend. Instagram was designed for, and continues to favor, photos snapped on a cell phone. As a mobile-first app, photographers have to follow a few extra steps to get photos from their cameras onto the app.
The extra steps (all to have a low-quality square crop of your photo) doesn’t correlate well with the development of the app. Starting out as a social media sharing space, Instagram has become for photographers a serious way to display photos most representative of their work, similar to a portfolio. Even as the photography community continues to develop around the app, Instagram is still dedicated to "mobile purity."
All of that being said, Instagram is a fantastic platform for travel photographers hoping to scope out a location or find locals to meet up with before heading out. Additionally, the hashtag organization system provides a useful way to discover and be discovered. I recently found Jonathan Deschenes through the hashtag #streetphotography. From the artist’s Instagram, I found their YouTube channel. From a random search, I found Deschenes, a versatile photographer and cinematographer who produces beautiful portraits, compelling music videos, and exciting work (such as underwater portraits).
500px
Unlike Instagram, 500px is designed specifically for photographers. No (or very few) low-quality photos will be found on this medium. 500px has a completely new discoverability mechanism, separating it from Instagram. The site works by measuring a photo’s “pulse,” which is based on a number of views and likes a photo receives. This leads to a different strategy for maximum exposure for posts other than sites such as Instagram.
Reddit has its own unique, strange, and sometimes unsavory atmosphere. However, the photo forums (mainly r/photography, r/itookapicture, and r/photocritique) act as communities where photographers receive and distribute critiques. I’ve found that, more so than other photography communities, Reddit is particularly adept at generating meaningful feedback for photographers. Furthermore, Reddit users don’t have profile photos, but you can see their contributions to subreddits and posts, allowing informed judgment when deciding action based on feedback from a particular user.
Additionally, Reddit is a discussion based forum that generates conversation on many useful topics. For example, this list of Photography Agency sites was generated by u/ lilgreenrosetta on r/photography.
While Facebook is more often thought of as a social platform, there are several groups dedicated to discussion surrounding photography. These groups can range from beginner-oriented to a mix of more advanced users. Personally, most of the photographers on these sites tend to lean more towards the amateur level generating discussions surrounding intro-level topics such as basic re-touching, beginner gear choice, etc. However, occasionally a more mature photographer will post their work.
YouTube
YouTube is the self-taught photographer’s education. Channels like Digital Rev provide gear reviews. The photographers conducting these reviews often have impressive bodies of work on their own (Alamby Leung, who left in 2013, being one of my favorite photographers of the bunch). There also exists cross platform communities, such as The Art of Photography, that originally started on YouTube and grew out from the platform. Aside from the more directly tutorial videos, photographers (amateur to more mature) who dabble in videography often use YouTube as another medium to showcase their work, occasionally in the form of reviews, “behind the shoots,” and so on (Julio Ryuuzaki and MAX+ONE Portrait Photography are both great resources for inspiration). Finally, B&H’s Lecture series exposes newcomers and those interested to experienced photographers who focus on instruction. For example, Adam Marelli explores the roots of photo composition, drawing on other forms of art to aid in creating more compelling exposures.
Agency Sites
On these sites you’ll find professional photographers who work with representatives who help manage clients and negotiate prices for projects. Here, you’ll find artists such as Clément Jolin’s, Peter Thiedeke, and Nicole Bentley, each a far cry from some of the photos found on social sharing sites. The artists on these sites represent photographers operating within some of the highest levels in art, fashion, and all photography industries.
All of the above resources are incredibly helpful for finding inspiration and developing a style. Whatever your interests may be, from fashion, landscapes, to still life, it is important to remember to take a break from other photographers. Research and practice are the keys to developing as a photographer. Spending too much time absorbing the work of other artists runs the risk of having more of their work than you’d like end up in your shots. Additionally, it’s easy to become complacent viewing photos instead of going out and actually working on creating something. It’s important to recognize these moments, take a break from Instagram, get outside or into the studio, and almost force yourself to start taking photos again.
