I have been a member of different photography related Facebook Groups.
I joined groups for professional photography, behind the scenes,
photographers and models looking for TFP collaborations, groups for photo editing and more…
I shared many different personal projects, I shared experience, tried to help with advice anyway I can.
I was contributing to each of the groups I was in, and always followed the rules.
I never spammed and I was never ever rude to anyone.
Even tough I came across some positive interactions – the negative ones were a lot more.
Eventually I just left the groups, there was no point staying and getting aggravated
or upset over just sharing a photo.
I have heard a lot of people say that since I chose to share my photo on a platform with commenting,
I must be ok with whatever comments I get – because I choose to share the photo.
And if I don’t want to hear nasty comments I should just never share photos.
Sadly people take that view of the situation a bit too far.
Why should my decision of whether I share a photo or not be dictated
by factors that have nothing to do with the photo itself.
Many times I worked on something for several hours and achieved some goal or improved on a skill, and I look at my work and I feel happy & proud, why shouldn’t I be able to share that without being greeted with ton of unnecessary negativity ?
I created my own Facebook Photography group to make sure that there is at least one group on facebook where members can feel good about sharing their work, feel free to visit or join – Photography is not just clicking 🙂
In the video I am talking about:
- My reasons for joining Facebook Photography groups
- What I think about critiquing photos on Facebook
- My Experience in Facebook Photography Groups
- First FB photography group, I received a lot of hate comments and the admins ended up removing me
- Second FB photography group, I caught some fake account using someone else’s photos and the admins did nothing about it
- FB Group for Photographers & Models – TFP Photoshoots
- Some guy was convinced that my self portraits were actually captured by someone else. He also couldn’t understand that it is possible to capture portraits in landscape orientation
- People assumed that I have only one Camera and left negative comments about it
- More admin’s inadequate behavior
- Photo editing Facebook groups
- My ‘Digital Woman’ composite
- One group where I received few positive comments for the first time so I decided to stay in it for longer
- I left all the rest of the photography groups and stayed only in the last group where there was a bit of positivity and I got permanently blocked from it
- Local photography group, where someone was being rude when I tried to help him with solicited practical advice
After participating in groups for a while, I noticed a strange pattern going on – whenever I posted something for a first time in a group – the first comment I got was outrageous… It was almost as if there are people in the groups just waiting for someone new to post something and they started attacking for no reason, it was odd… mostly because it kept happening so many times. I found that peculiar so I tried blocking the person that left a bad comment and deleted my post. Then after few minutes I posted the same thing again and I got a normal comment. So that is my little trick for avoiding initial nasty comments 🙂
After talking about my… not so pleasant interactions on facebook,
I do want to mention one great person that I came across trough a facebook group.
His name is Dave Melges, he is a great photographer with a lot of knowledge and experience.
Oh, and one more thing – I made the video in b&w only because
I like how it looks – I never published a b&w video before 🙂
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