Shooting in Black and White Is Helping Me to Improve My Photography!

Hello all, I hope you are are having a fantastic March!

I have been experimenting with black and white photography more than I ever have, and if you follow me on any of the social media platforms you will have probably noticed that trend! I love this kind of photography because it feels so much more emotional to me, so much more in touch with the human side of the image. That probably sounds cheesy, but hey, that's kind of who I am I suppose.

But why? Because it makes me uncomfortable. What I mean by that is this: I have almost always shot color. I felt like I was in a rut with my work recently and I knew that I had to do something to shake things up a bit. Enter black and white! I have always liked black and white photography, but never shot it personally because I assumed that color was adding things to my photography. So it makes me uncomfortable because I am not used to shooting this way at all, and is presenting itself with a bit of a learning curve for me.

I also want to say that I have been posting quite a bit on my Instagram (check it out by clicking here) recently and is my primary social media site at this point. So head on over and click that "Follow" button!

With all of that said, I am now exclusively shooting black and white and I can already tell that it is helping me improve my photography. It is helping me focus on composition, and drawing out raw emotion in my images, rather than simply capturing what was there. It's so much fun too!

-WP

Naturally Growing Your Instagram Account Will Get you Real Followers the Fastest: Here are the 3 Reasons Why!

As photographers we are always looking for creative ways to expand our online presence and get our photos exposed to more people. Instagram is currently the powerhouse of social media photo sharing and is still growing at a ridiculous pace...which creates both a blessing and a curse. Tens of millions of photographers publish their work on Instagram every day creating an extremely saturated market.

With competition so high and the desire to grow ones network, many photographers find themselves looking for any sort of way to grow their following. There are all sorts of "tips" and "tricks" that one can use, with everything from following thousands of people in hopes that a handful of them will follow you back to  randomly liking and commenting on strangers photos. Some third party sites even allow you to purchase followers, though almost 100% of these followers are bots and not real people and will therefore never interact with your account. However, I will explain that these methods simply do not pay off in the long run.


So here are the 3 reasons why allowing your Instagram account following to grow naturally is the best way to do it...by far!

1. You Want Interaction, Not Numbers - Do you want real people or computers looking at your photos?

If very few people are liking and commenting on your photos, then there is no reason to have a bunch of followers. It is pointless. While it may be sexy to have "100k" or some other bloated number under the "Followers" area on your Instagram profile, social media success comes down to how people interact with their followers and vice versa. There are many options of gaining "trash" followers (accounts that will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, like, comment, or interact with your account in any way). I briefly touched on these earlier, and I stand by what I said. When you follow a bunch of people or like thousands of images or  - *facepalm* - buy followers, you are going to get trash followers over 95% of the time. What is the point of having a social media site if no real people see your content?

2. You Don't Look Desperate or Fake - Keep You "Following" Number in Check

Let's say that you visit a random Instagram account and see that this person followers some 5,000 and has around 1,800 followers. What does that look like to you? Does that add credibility to their account or does it take away from it? It obviously takes away. But why? Because it makes the account look cheap, lazy and desperate. Even if the gap was closer, say, following 5,000 and has 4,000 followers if would still look bad. Heck, if you have 5,400 followers but have to follow 5,000 other people to get to that point that probably means that your content isn't very good or that your connections aren't that strong. That is exactly what others will be thinking too when they see bloated "following" numbers when compared to your "followers" number.

3. You and Your Content Look Credible - Have your Current Followers want to Keep Following you!

Above all, you need to remember that people are smart and seeing an account with 75 active followers with 150 total followers will always be more attractive than 20 active followers with 3,000 total followers! Remember: its not the size of your following that matters, its about what you do with it (yes, I just said that). When you start gaining followers (yes, it will be slow at first) make sure to interact with them and make them feel appreciated. Comment on their photos, respond to EVERY SINGLE comment that is left on any of your photos and make sure to push yourself to create excellent content. You may be surprised at how much value these interactions have, especially when compared to the dull reality that "trash" followers are worthless.

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So unless you simply want a bunch of trash followers to make yourself feel good by having a big "Followers" number, stay patient and honestly interact with others. Engage with other users and your account will blossom with followers that actually care about you and your content. After all, isn't that what you want?