TWiP #246 – Pinterest’s Interest

In no way shape or form am I looking to downplay copyright infringement or the sharing and stealing of images without a photographers permission. Simply stated, it is wrong and it is a problem. However, I think that photographers are viewing social media all wrong. 

A lot of photographers are taking measures to resist and make it harder for people to find and share their images on social networks for fear of an image “getting out into the wild” without their permission. The reality is, the way people interact with the web today has changed from the way they used the web 5 years ago. Not everyone is navigating to websites to find interesting images and content they enjoy. With so many sites and tools that do a fantastic job of curating interesting content, gone are the days where we visit individual websites for updates. Instead, we log on to that one site to see all of our content, from our favorite sites, in one stream. We sift through that which appears and visit only the pages of the content we find intriguing. It saves time and weeds out all of the unnecessary, uninteresting, content. 

By making your content harder to find by way of these sites, you are committing yourself to stubborn ways. It WILL NOT change how people use the web and it will not encourage folks to visit your website. In fact, it will do the exact opposite. People will still use websites like Pinterest to find cool images, only, your images will no longer show up on anyone’s boards or feeds. And guess what? Those people who used to pin your images because it was once interesting and easily accessible, will not navigate away from Pinterest to view your images. They will simply forget about you and your work. You are “swimming upstream.”

It is much easier to change yourself, your actions, and the way you interact with your audiences through social media than it is to change an entire culture of internet trends. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are indicative of the way social media will be shifting for years to come. If you refuse to adapt, you can absolutely count on less traffic to your website. You may be a fantastic photographer but if you make it hard for people to find your images within their daily workflow, they will simply stop looking for you. 

PS. – As far as I know, if you are pinning an image from within the webpage it originated from, by default it links back to that page. So if an image is pinned from your website, it will link back to YOUR website.  

Re the heavy pipe welder who wanted to take photos : I’m on construction all the time and was surprised no-one mentioned the Canon G12 ( surprised because Frederick has a G9 )! The low light performance is excellent and the fully articulated screen means the screen can face you when you’re shooting yourself. That means on self timer you can keep an eye on the exposure, focus and composition.