Ask HN: What are non-social media ways to share photography/art

4 points by rPlayer6554 6 hours ago

Hello all,

I bought a camera and I found that I love taking pictures. However after a year or two of taking pictures I’ve found myself in a rut. I don’t know what to do with the pictures or how to share them with others because I cannot use social media (other than HN and LinkedIn.) I personally have just found the scrolling and infinite content mechanisms are way too addicting for me, so I stay off of it.

This leads to my photos just sitting in Dropbox, often unedited because I don’t have motivation to edit them, because the most I’d do with them is share with family / a few close friends, and put them on a website nobody looks at. If I could find a way to share with others it might motivate me to put more effort into it.

I’m wondering if people have any ways they’ve found to share their art with others that doesn’t involve social media.

k310 6 hours ago

No (anti)social for me.

I checked photo galleries a while back, with the idea of sharing in a limited way, so that my photos don't end up owned by stock agencies, and I have to hire a small army of lawyers to get them back, or fodder for AI. (see the recent "fair use" of books by buying them, tearing them apart and scanning them. )

The following reviews photo gallery sites, unfortunately, the reviewer owns a site, that ranks #1 on the list. That aside, the article gives an idea what is available, all the way to letting visitors buy prints. I remember an email exchange with Pixieset.

https://picflow.com/blog/best-online-galleries-for-photograp...

I like free tiers, but never let the photos out of home, except sharing via email or (shrunken) as messages. My mail client (Apple) offers to resize photos if the message gets large.

These may be overkill, so sites like smugmug may suffice. I have been taking photos for over 50 years, non-professionally (so it's fun) and always do a quick "best of batch" sort (I tag the photos) and a quick tune up. The jpegs I get (Nikon) are so good, that's all I need to get great results. But I have raw editing apps loaded up. HTH

al_borland 6 hours ago

Someone I know who is really into photography uses SmugMug, but they generally send me a link when they post something they think I'd be interested in.

A few years ago I tried out write.as, and they also have https://snap.as for photos. It was a little finicky at the time, but may have gotten better.

Without a social aspect, I don't know that you'll have any organic discovery, it will mostly be close friends who you send the links to.

I really only take photos when I travel, and usually just make a shared album on my phone and invite a handful of people to it.

mch82 6 hours ago

Are there any artist groups in your area? You might like participating in critique groups, meet ups, or entering shows.