I’ve been writing this blog now for more than half a year and want to share my first résumé about the positive sides of having your own blog. Writing articles consistently became my second passion and allow me to invest time into photography apart from being on the street. If you think about starting a photography blog yourself, the following article should give you some insights about the work that goes into the blog posts.

Get your own blog with this Tutorial on How To Start a Photography Blog.

Second Thoughts about Photography

I think about photography a lot. When I am not shooting on the street and working on other tasks or have some free time, I recap on my last time hitting the street and what photos I missed and which things I could have done better. While browsing through Lightroom and seeing the thousands of pictures I am also critical of my own work and think about room for improvement. This raises a lot of questions about various topics concerning Street Photography. Initially, when I started this sort of photography around one and half year ago I tried to recreate the style of my role models and favorite photographers. Of course, this didn’t work out at the beginning and out of frustration, I began reading about different compositional elements, photography techniques and the work that really goes into outstanding pictures.

Gradually my knowledge rose and along the way I want to share what I learned up to now. This might be trivial for some of the more experienced folks, but doing some research and writing down an article about specific topics helps you a lot in developing a deeper understanding of photography.

If you feel inferior because Street Photography is new to you and have nothing to share, I encourage you to document your learning process and write down your point of view of being a beginner. There are probably more people out there that are interested in Street Photography, but can’t push themselves to try it out for the first time, than there are experienced photographers. This means that your target audience for articles that help beginners is way bigger than writing complex posts that require five years of working experience understand your point of view.

Over time your understanding of Street Photography changes and with it also your perspective on certain subjects. Having written down your opinion allows you to understand your own personal development and how your knowledge matured over time.

Starting your Photography Blog

Feeling at home with your own Photography Blog

The norm for photographers to share their images became through social media. Facebook, Instagram, and the likes are great ways to spread your photos, but you are always the dependent on the platform, their rules and especially algorithms. With millions of photos shared every day those platforms filter a lot of content that doesn’t even reach the people that specifically signed up to receive your photos. This can be frustrating because being a photographer and sharing images on said platforms means to understand the algorithms and rules that maximize the visibility of your photos. For Instagram, for example, this would mean to post almost on a daily basis, which isn’t really my cup of tea.

With your own blog, you are kind of your own boss. You are absolutely free to post the content you like and people that visit your blog will always be able to receive the content they are interested the most in. Who knows how long Instagram will be the most frequented photo platform? Having a blog or website is something stable that will last for as long as you are interested in. Being dependent on “third party platforms” can mean that you have to build up your audience every time you jump the ship and test a new way to share your images.

Starting your Photography Blog

Spreading the message through your Blog

In addition to sharing images, your own blog also allows you to create the content specifically the way you want to design it. Most social media platforms are becoming more and more restrictive with the content that is allowed. Instagram is very strict in only allowing pictures that are “child-friendly”. If you are a boudoir photographer you are very limited in displaying your creative vision or at risk of your pictures being deleted. Youtube recently introduced a new policy that doesn’t allow “controversial” videos to be monetized. It is arguable if this might have an influence on photography channels, but it shows that Youtube tries to prohibit content that has a negative effect on the advertising partners.

On the other hand, it takes a lot of time and dedication to get your message heard. You need to write articles continuously to build up a community that is interested in your blog entries. Once a week, like I do is probably too little frequent. If you have the time and the passion, publishing texts multiple times a week is more optimal. But even if you push yourself to be as active as possible, the blog still needs time to grow and to be found via google.

So if you are trying to learn Street Photography, I absolutely recommend starting a blog just for your own’s sake. It forces you to spend some time thinking about certain topics and helps you to develop a deeper understanding while writing the articles.


Stay Curious

Sebastian Jacobitz