Popularity is a weird thing. It can be a gratifying thing to achieve widespread acclaim for your work, but if you are not careful, it can turn on you, making you create work to please others instead of yourself. So, who cares who likes your photos? This important video essay discusses the topic and one photographer’s experience.
Coming to you from Evan Ranft, this excellent video essay discusses the importance of staying true to yourself as a photographer. No doubt, in today’s world that is heavily driven by social media numbers, it can be very tempting to chase clout and likes, but this will often lead you to end up in a cycle of constantly creating work that panders to the latest trends instead of images that are a truer representation of your creativity. Seeing those followers and likes increase can be exciting, but you will almost always end up being dissatisfied and unfulfilled eventually if the work you are creating is motivated by external factors instead of your own impulses. We should never forget that at the end of the day, photography is supposed to be something we are passionate about and enjoy. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Ranft.