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Websites vs Social Media for photographers

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With TikTok facing a potential ban and Instagram ruining profile grids, many creators are questioning if building a presence on social media is worth the effort, given the uncertainty of the medium.

I’ve always advocated for personal websites and blogs: a platform you can truly own, free from the whims of tech billionaires. At the same time, though, I don’t shy away from sharing my work on social media.

These days, a website feels like opening a studio in a quiet, rundown part of town, while everyone is hanging out at the mall. It is flashy, lively, and all the cool kids are there. They even offer us a little corner for free, so we can speak our truths to the whole world.

That’s until the mall starts charging a fee and diverting visitors to the business placing the highest bids. Over time, you also realize that even though you got to interact with a lot of visitors, most of those interactions were fleeting. You’ve never seen those people ever again.

Yet, among the noise, meaningful connections still happen every now and then at the mall. While I’ve connected with fellow photographers through my or their websites, most of my relationships with people in this field have come through social media.

This has never been a case of the website or social media, but about embracing both the website and social media. The most beautiful, personal website is useless if no one ever visits; and your social media presence relies on whatever happens to please the owner that day of the week.

There’s no ideal solution to the problem of reaching an audience in this noisy, loud world. I believe that embracing both worlds is the best we can do.

Own the platform

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Things are changing, as they always do. And we humans hate change.

It feels like it was yesterday when we were all hating on social media, while mourning the old platforms. It is 2022, and here we are, hating on TikTok and VR, mourning platforms like Instagram and Twitter.

I have no idea what the future will be for those platforms; I really hope I don't end up having to use VR glasses to share my photography and enjoy the work of fellow photographers.

No matter what the future will bring, this is a good moment to be reminded of the importance of having your own platform.

Lately, I've been trying to consolidate all my sources of inspiration in a RSS app. Instagram doesn't allow this, so the photographers who share their work exclusively on that platform are out; Twitter is playing nice... for now; but the ones that work the best are regular old websites and blogs.

Relying on social media to connect with peers and share your work was a great idea; exclusively using those platforms was a very bad idea.

I get it, a blog can be boring. It can feel like you are talking to no one. If you think the engagement is low on IG, just wait until you post on your own website.

And yet, I believe it's very important to have your own place, your little home in the Internet. Very few people will show up, but those are the ones that really matter. And of course, we can keep using social media and whatever platform comes next to reach new people and invite them to come over and look at what we have to offer.

If you don't have a website, I deeply encourage you to create one. Keep it simple. And then share it with all the people you've connected with over the years, so they know where they can find you in case the metaverse doesn't cut it for you.

Where does "aows" come from, anyway?

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This is a question that comes up every once in a while.

Years ago I decided that I wanted an email address like adrian@otero.com. It looked cool, I guess.

otero wasn't available in any of the major domains, so I started to look for alternatives. I eventually found ws. This is the domain for the country of Samoa and I guess they weren't selling many because they started promoting it as an acronym to website.

adrian.otero.ws

adrian - otero - website

That was the idea. I liked it.

Today, I don't know of anyone using that domain in that way.

Anyway, about that time, Twitter launched and I had to get a username. I went for "adrian otero ws", aows. I loved how short it was.

Over the years, I kept using the same username in every social network and platform I signed up for, including Instagram. That's where my photography career started, and since I couldn't find a better / easier username I stuck with it.

And this is where aows comes from.

Creating stuff that will outlast ourselves

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A while ago, I had a "terrible" realization: everything I had done in life as a software developer was already gone or will be gone in the next few years. Apps have been taken down, websites have been closed.

The exception might be a few lines of code, here and there. They will survive as long as someone else keeps them alive.

The fate of all the side projects I've worked on over the years (hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work) is already sealed, though: they are all gone.

Even as a photographer, if I stop paying the bills this website would be shut down, and all online platforms will eventually go away and / or delete my images.

Your life's work gone, just like that.

The day I realized about this was the day I sold my first physical copy of "Went West", my first book. At that moment, my website and online platforms stopped being the only places where my work lived. There are 40+ copies of that book all around the world, and since then, I've also shipped several prints of some of my images.

I know they too will vanish, eventually. Some might have already been thrown away, or put away. Most will follow at some point.

My hope is for just a few that will survive and outlast me, if someone finds them to bring some joy. A legacy of sorts.

While I appreciate the immediacy of the web and the convenience of online platforms, I'm aiming to create more physical work this year and to put it in hands of more people.