There’s been a number of things I’ve observed about photography blogs and YouTube channels over the past few months. Even more so since we’ve all been stuck at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And I have a number of concerns with what I have been seeing. All of this isn’t cosplay/fine art portrait specific. But since a number of cosplay photographers probably visit the same places I do some of this should connect.
Too Much of the Same Info is Being Repeated
This was something I’ve especially seen with YouTube channels, which quite often get linked on the various blogs. Why do we need so many videos on subjects like:
What do different light modifiers do?
How to do different shots with one light
Explaining the exposure triangle
I’m pretty sure there’s more I could add to this list but I think most people reading this will get it.
I’m not sure why so many channels need to have their own version of the same info. One could argue that it’s for their own audience. But considering how often I see these videos show up I have to ask: how do you know your audience hasn’t already looked this up elsewhere? It is possible that someone could have a very interesting take on these subjects. That does seem to be rare in my findings.
‘Creative Inspiration’ Videos and Posts Don’t Go Far Enough
With this there were two specific things I noticed:
1: There were assumptions that everyone would immediately be interested in the content of the video.
2: There were assumptions that everyone would get why they used a technique.
For the first point I’m going to reference all the ‘ways to stay creative while in lockdown’ videos that came out. Now I fully understand why people put out these videos. It’s just when I’d see posts about them there were hardly any descriptions of what was in the video itself. Why would you assume that everyone would be interested in the content? And more importantly why would you assume that the material was relevant to the work of a particular photographer? Speaking for myself if I don’t know what’s in it I’m not going to bother.
As for the second point I’m going to talk about the “photography hack” videos (and to be candid I’m not a fan of that term). They tend to be really short. You just see a bit of the setup… and the result. But that’s about it. There’s never any discussion about where the idea came up in the first place. And no discussion about the setup and execution. And it’s always just one result. Why not multiple results and talk about what worked and what didn’t?
Not Everyone Is In The Exact Same Space
Every so often I’d get an email from some photography site I subscribed to. And the subject line would say something interesting about portrait photography. More often than not it would be about weddings, business headshots, or high school seniors. Once in a while I’d get something about fashion or boudoir which to a degree are adjacent to what we do. But never anything about fine art portraiture. And certainly never anything about cosplay.
I get that some of the segments I mentioned are pretty large. But when the rest of us are not spoken to how does that make us feel?
Same goes for concert photography. Anytime I see that brought up in an article it’s always regarding shooting really well known artists in big venues. What about us that try to cover acts at local smaller venues? I did that for YEARS and can talk a lot about that subject. But it’s never brought up.
It’s Time For Different Conversations
Whenever I read interviews with photographers the interviewer tends to go “surface level” when discussing their work. As in talking about their history, work ethic, so on. But they very rarely try to dive into a specific project they have done and ask “OK, what was the inspiration behind this? How did you tackle it? What were the thoughts in editing?” and so on.
And the thing is I know there’s photographers who want to talk about this. Through random discovery I’ve found people who do go over these things (primarily on YouTube). But I hardly ever see them referenced on the photo blogs. And I do not know why.
For me I tend to pay more attention to those who dive deeper about their work. When I see a particular photo result I do get some “starter ideas” about what they were trying to achieve and how they did it. But when they go deeper into both the technical and creative aspects of the pics they are trying to put together I usually get that moment of “Oooohhhh”. Whenever an artist goes to that level of explanation with what they are doing it is more likely to stick with me. And I’ll be more apt to use what I learned from them.
I think now would be a really great time to start exploring into these things. We need more thoughtful and well explained inspiration. Especially in this time where we’re not sure when we can safely go explore ourselves as creatives again. Give people something they can really take and apply to what they do.
Final Thoughts
Based on what I’ve seen from the blogs and channels… and from conversations I’ve had with other photographers… I have to offer this:
Your audience is a lot smarter than you think.
Given the situation we’re in now this really could be a good time to consider the material being presented. And how it could be made better.
To bring this back to our space… our fellow cosplayers and cosplay photographers could also benefit from all of this. Given that conventions and events are most likely out of consideration for 2020 this gives us more space to possibly do something different. Let’s do something instead of just presenting photos for consumption and discussing the technical details of both the costume and the photo taking.
Overall I think there’s a good number of things people want to talk about. But they’re not being addressed for some reason.
So let’s change things and talk about them.
