Photophys.com: The Science of Photography

My review of 500px last week was generally positive, but still it did not do justice to the site. What I missed, and what should be emphasized is the importance of the concept of “community.” When some of my first uploads were only viewed a few times and received relatively few positive votes, I was disappointed. Then some of my more successful shots started receiving comments, and I was prompted to examine the galleries of the commenters. That was a revelation. I found that other nature photographers were reaching more viewers and generating higher ratings than I was with images no better in quality than mine.

Then I noticed that the successful photographers often had large numbers of friends and were being followed by a substantial group of photographers with similar interests. I was able to visit the pages of their friends and to see their ratings and how many of their images were being selected as favorites by others.

The message is this. It is very important for a new participant to develop a compatible community of photographers. There are two essential steps in this process. First, find photographers you should be following, subscribe to their photo streams, and comment on their images. Second, attract followers to your page by your selection of friends and your comments; and, of course, encourage them to subscribe to your work by presenting outstanding images. Read on if you want more details about how it all works.

If I elect to follow someone, their new submissions will appear on my friends page; and they will receive email notification that I am following them. That, of course, prompts them to visit my page, and if they want to see my new submissions, they can elect to follow me. By selecting my friends, I can determine which photos from the daily flood will be presented to me. This selected set of images will linger on my friends page, and I will have a chance to evaluate photos that I would have missed otherwise. Similarly, having a substantial set of followers guarantees that my submissions will be seen by an appropriate audience.

During the last few days I have been building up my community. That job is far from complete, but I am already reaping benefits. As of today I am following 90 photographers and 31 individuals have subscribed to my page. I continually search for additional photographers to follow by surveying images on the fresh pages and the upcoming pages as well as on the popular and favorites pages. In addition, I try to check out the pages of those who comment on my work to see if I should follow them.

The subscribers on my list represent 19 countries and eight states. 500px took over much of the world before coming to Canada and the US, but the growth rate here is impressive.

One final note: Some of my images get viewers and ratings quickly and others languish with few viewers. I cannot predict in advance which images will win in this international member’s choice contest, but I am sure that the local judges I know would often pick different winners. I think one factor is that we often discount beautiful iconic images because we know how common they are. The international audience may be less sensitive to this effect. Of course, there is an impact factor that the photographers may miss when evaluating their own work.

My submissions and other information can be found at: 500px.com/csid36