Random Update... okay, photography updates

[olivermoss]

* I did 1.5 photo walks this week. The second one was too short to count as a full walk. Didn't get many pictures, maybe two. Still, got walking in. I really need to yeet myself up to St. Johns or something to get different streets to walk.

* The local photogroup that sometimes rejects my photos for being too dark and spoopy apparently don't know what what genitals look like. They approved a bunch of photos of slap tags by someone else and it's like that's a penis! Do they not know what a penis looks like? It's got balls and everything!

I need to find more groups to post to. But, meh. Flickr is dead. Insta sucks. I keep forgetting my twitter is actually a photography account and not a 'laugh at NFT stuff like the Openseas hack' account. I enjoy posting here, but I also want to get at least some of my work out there somewhere.

* I need to clean my gear tomorrow. I may have dropped a lenscap in wet grass tonight. Overall, I think I am due for a good cleaning and check of everything.

* I've just ordered a mini-LED that attaches to a zipper so I don't need to change lenses completely by feel. I don't think that's great for the camera mount. I wish the lenses had a bump I could feel for, instead of a dot, for lining up the lens and body.

* My OMD camera body is 5 years old and my PEN is 6... that doesn't mean I need an upgrade. Tho, I rarely use the PEN anymore. I need to find something to do with it. I love PENs and hate not having one. I was devastated when my PEN 5 broke in that fall I took at Deception Point and I had to do a lot to manage to replace it with a PEN 8, but now it's rarely in my bag. I needs more use.

[edits to add]





... I swear my lenses don't typically look like this. I usually spot check every 2 weeks. This is ... bad.

Comments

[malinaldarose]

Would a tiny drop of nail polish added to the dot help you out? You'd be able to feel for that.

[olivermoss]

I've considered that. For now I am going to try a tiny LED so I have at least some light. I only need to not be in complete darkness. If that doesn't work I'll try nail polish or something.

[mistressofmuses]

I hate that insta still seems to be everyone's suggestion for where photography should go, because... it sucks, lol. Before FB owned it maybe it was better, and I also admit that I just haven't ever been able to quite "get" it, but...

I guess twitter is where all the cool professional kids hang out these days.

[olivermoss]

I was a very late adopter of Insta and just never managed to get a foothold there.

I should really focus more on twitter but, idk, I feel like I need to be extra careful how I present the city there.

As always, what I really need to do is update my website and link seed.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I've never done much with insta. I have an account, and followed the people I knew... and have literally never used it, haha. I feel like I just don't really "get" it, and my impression (maybe unfairly) was that it's mostly people posting art and photos that they didn't create, maybe with but often without any credit.

Twitter seems to still be the professional social media of choice - I've been told that it's basically a hard requirement if you want to get into publishing or anything, but... again, I've just never really "gotten" it, and never wanted to spend the time on there to learn. The strong prioritization of hot takes and now-now-now exhausts me to think about! And I can see what you mean about having to worry about how you portray things.

I wish people having their own sites was a bit more common these days, instead of just an insta and a twitter and a FB business page. I know, I'm still web-old.
But none of those replace a well-designed, individual webpage, actually showing what's important to the person who has it, instead of just generic social media profiles. (Or a webpage that was clearly purchased for a purpose, but has two updates from three years ago, some lorem ipsum text if you poke through the menu... and a link to the person's insta, twitter, and FB.)
I do love your website, and browsing all the galleries you have.

[olivermoss]

Honestly, despite all the hype about fb and insta, my personal site does the most for me. I highly recc anyone who does photography or many other types of art give a personal site a go.

Insta is harsh. You must constantly feed it or you become invis. I am going to do a 3 week experiement of posting some really good content there to see what happens. I am not going to keep it up, I literally can't. It's too much. But I am going to just give it 3 weeks and see if I get noticed or make some sort of connection. I need a break from fb group mods.

I think in YA a twitter account is important. Lindsey Ellis outright said that her high twitter engagement is how she got her advance and as juicy as deal as she did ... but being a 24/7 hot take generator is not sustainable. I think for anyone outside of YA having a minimal presence is fine. I mean, look at the cancel-ridden trash fire YA twitter is. It's a crapshoot.

Insta does have a huge theft problem and the big accounts steal. Doesn't matter if they take it down when asked, they've already gotten the engagement. Still, some people are trying to establish a Weird Portland United... thing over there and the main account is painfully obviously content starved. They are connected to Regional Memesmith and Unipiper so I want to see if my vast collection of yard skeleton photos can grab their attention. Not for, you know, stealing but maybe networking with them or maybe getting a few clickthroughs to my website.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, the algorithmic nature of insta (or twitter, or FB...) is fucking awful. I feel like a broken record with how much I say I hate it, but god I hate it. If you aren't constantly pumping out content, you might as well not exist, to a point that isn't sustainable unless you want it to practically be a full-time job.

I'll be curious to see the results of your insta experiment!

So much of it is utterly unsustainable - both to constantly churn out the hot takes every current event or bit of news requires, AND to never fall to the wrong side of an issue and the mob mentality of twitter as a whole. Then you see the way it burns people out who try; again with Ellis. (And plenty of others who don't have AS broad a platform as she had, who might not really be noticed when they burn out and end up having to leave social media.) It is a cancel-ridden trash fire. I see a lot of people in romance and to a lesser extent sff circles say twitter is an absolute must-have, if not as prominently as YA, but... idk, it's one of those things I just don't think I could ever stand doing long-term.

I think it's the fact that to be at the top of the algorithm on insta you HAVE to steal, or at least so it seems based on which accounts wind up on top. As long as they got the numbers, the algorithm smiles on them, regardless of what happens after.

That would be cool to maybe partner with a group like that - in a mutually beneficial way, rather than a "and now you're reposting my shit without credit" way.

[olivermoss]

People farming engagement on insta with stolen content and then selling the accounts used to be a fairly common practice. Someone started a photo club here in PDX with weekly contests... and you had to sign off on her being able to use your work. She built up enough clout that she got a free invite to some photography review and job fair that is either invite-only or $2k to attend. It's like ... I *want* to be involved in the local photography community, but holy shit.

There is also a problem in one of my fandoms where people repost fan art to farm engagement and use it to promote their fic.

I am just so sick of all of it. So many people being parasites. I really need to promote my fic and photos more, but doing so without either being an asshole or see as an asshole is hard.

[mistressofmuses]

I remember when that was a big thing on insta! (Or maybe it still is.) It used to be on FB, too. At least there they now have the "account transparency" which shows if the page changed from "Save the cute animals" to "buy crypto now" or whatever, but I don't know if insta has anything similar.

That seems so... crummy. :/ Like, I guess at least she got permission, but ugh. Super shitty to have gotten the industry-in... based on curating other people's shit, not her own.

Ugh, I haven't seen that particular fandom-scam. (I guess scam isn't really the word, but... theft/sceme/manipulation isn't as punchy.) That is super obnoxious. I get wanting eyes on your fic, but... being shitty is a shitty way to go about it.

I'm awful at self-promotion, admittedly, but ugh. These kinds of spammy/scammy/parasitic/thieving attempts at gaming the algorithm to bait more engagement just... wouldn't fucking occur to me, lol.

(It's like all the youtube channels that churn out fake lifehack videos and shit.)

It's extra garbage that those unethical and shitty asshole methods are so much more successful (by some measures) than almost anything organic can be, so it's that much harder to "compete" when doing it "the right way."

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I just want to get my stuff out there more to balance the playing field a bit, but ... not much to do. Especially since self-reccing is taboo in a lot of fandom old spaces.

[mistressofmuses]

I dislike that self-reccing is as taboo as it is in those fandom-old spaces. I *like* fandom-old spaces... but fandom as a whole has changed a lot, and you really can't count on the old "if it's good, other people will find it and recc it"/"cream rises to the top" conventional wisdom.
Things get buried, especially if they're a few years old (hell, even a few months. weeks. days, depending on fandom.)

I know that it can get spammy if a group turns into nothing BUT self-reccs (especially when people like the art-stealing spammer types decide to jump in), but there's got to be a comfortable medium.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it's like there are two extremes. In fandom old spaces we sit there and put the wish out into the universe that someone notices us and in other spaces it's hustle-all-day-long.

I don't want to have 'don't self recc' as a rule in any of my comms, but the only people who do self recc tend to be major spammers who cause complaints. Posting once for a new work is fine, but I had someone posting 2-x weekly and now my comms are on moderated-posting-only.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I want a mid-point! All-hustle-all-the-time has zero appeal, but just hoping that the right person finds your thing and happens to recc it to their hundreds or thousands of followers doesn't work all that often either.

But yeah, looking for that mid-point seems to often require that everyone is on the same page with what's reasonable... and the people who want to make sure they don't annoy other comm members will err on the side of not self-promoting at all, and the ones who don't care will spam with it. (I'm glad that moderated posting is a thing!)

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I want a way to promote myself that doesn't involve making a sock puppet account and pretending to be own friend. Oh well, right now I should focus on writing more anyway. The Guild Wars 2 hype might have derailed me a tad >.>

[mistressofmuses]

Saaaaame. Making a credible sock to recc my own shit is just... so much extra work, lol.

Yay for more writing! I need to get back to it post art project, too. I very much know the feeling of the new shiny game thing being a strong (and also worthy) distraction.