Call me slow, or whatever. I have finally decided to give Flickr a serious chance. I’ve always known about it and had a profile on there for as long as I can remember. For some reason I always just saw it as another one of those “photo sharing” tools that were okay to post pictures of your last vacation or new toys, but not the kind of thing you want to use to promote yourself as a serious professional photographer.

Times they are a changing. Social media has grown so much over the years that things are actually turning back on themselves… in a good way. At first there was apprehension and a lot of people had the same attitude as mine on the use of things like Flickr.

Surely it devalues the industry? Yes and no. If you’re not educated enough on the topics of copyrights and image usage rights, then you could easily be taken for a ride. If you do your homework however, you have a brilliant medium to showcase your work and you can pick and choose commissions or photo sales from enquirers at your discretion. Just as you would in the world outside of social networking.

Surely you’re mixing it in amongst the amateurs and hobbyists? Yes, but is that a bad thing when you stand out like a diamond in the rough? If Sally and Bob are posting images of their doggies and kitties and trips to the dentist, and you’re posting your high quality images showing a distinct theme or pattern of your strengths… who is someone looking for a photographer likely to call?

Microstock sites are an entirely different discussion, but play a part in so far as the fact that they are slowly feeling the pinch of the professionals coming back with a vengeance on systems like Flickr.

A professional stock photographer has to sell one image hundreds or thousands of times to make the same amount of money a traditional professional photographer can make in the sale of one. Given, the systems are all set up and it’s a different business model targeting a different market segment, but rather than throwing breadcrumbs to the pigeons, I’d prefer to set up a professional shop front and entice the serious buyers in.

I’ll be integrating my photostream into this site in due course, but while I do that, please check it out on Flickr.