Likes, Inspiration and Social Media

My last blog garnered a good response on social media - lots of positive comments on Instagram and Twitter; if no actual direct responses on here; the website that hosted it. Maybe that’s the perfect response in itself. 

Thinking on (and I’m not the first person to think of all the things they wish they’d said after the moment had passed) I think the major omission from the blog was: inspiration.

For me, one of the greatest honours is to know that I have inspired someone else. There were a few posts on my feed this week that drew that response - I’d encouraged photographers to go out and shoot and, more specifically, to go looking for reflections. 

Basking in that initial warm fuzz, I began to think about inspiration. I have been so inspired by so many of the feeds that I follow on both Instagram and Twitter that I was surprised that I hadn’t focused on that as a major reason for swimming in the social media pool.  

Inspiration is a two way street. I can hope to inspire - but I expect to be inspired.

The work of other photographers has opened my eyes to new ways of seeing, of processing, of framing...  

It has inspired me to visit new places and helped to plan my street photography when I am there. 

I have been introduced to the work of other published photographers - both living and dead - through references and comments in feeds.  Some feeds even exist to publish work of long gone greats who probably never even used the words “social” and “media” in the same sentence.

Social media really does have the capacity to inspire on a worldwide level - both looking ahead to the future as you see the work of current photographers develop, and looking back to the past.

In short, I can’t help feeling that if you don’t find inspiration in social media then you must be following the wrong people.