I’ve been blogging in one form or another for over 10 years now. The last five of those have been more focused on photography and photo blogging. As the decade ends and a new one begins, I wonder what the future holds for photo blogging in 2020 and beyond?
Who needs a blog when there’s social media?
For many photographers, a blog seems pointless in a world dominated by social media. With Instagram, Snapchat and even YouTube so visually focused and centralized, why would some come to a blog?
And why should a someone bother writing a blog post when an Instagram post required less text (or none at all). Photo blogging in a social media world seems antiquated and “so 2010”. It’s no wonder many photo bloggers have reduced their output or stopped all together.
Most photo blogs are how to, tutorials and gear reviews
The photo blogs that do remain are mostly how tos, tutorials and gear review sites. Although, the same can be said of a lot of YouTube channels. In fact, many of my own articles are those three types of content. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of those; I learned the basics of exposure and camera control from online article.
But it’s a shame that there are fewer personal photography stories.
Photo blogging can do what a social media post can’t
Social media can have its own creative constraints that lead to some great creations, but photo blogging can provide other opportunities. The option to display a series of images, including some out takes, with commentary and links to other relevant information is something that a set of images on Instagram can’t offer.
I always spend more time reading these crafted stories than I do when I scroll through Instagram. Instagram is, after all, a designed for browsing where a blog is built for reading.
Personal Blogging is making a come back…sort of…maybe
I’ve heard a lot about the return of personal blogging and RSS this year. Some good friends have deleted their Facebook and twitter accounts and restarted blogging. This gives them more control over the content they share.
Not to mention escaping the curse of the feed AI which throws up whatever your racist relative just posted. If that trend is true, then photo blogging is prime for a return too.
You don’t have to try and use all the relevant Instagram hashtags (and some irrelevant ones just for good measure) but instead you can share exactly what you want:
- One photo or a series,
- With commentary or without,
- A long post or a short one.
It’s your choice.
As followers of blogs, we could use an RSS reader like Feedly and have a chronological stream of photos from different photo blogs without any ads or likes. Isn’t that what most people want in the Instagram timeline?
But I have to admit that I’m not convinced the trend is true. I see plenty of evidence that Facebook, Instagram and their ilk are still as entrenched as ever.
Will you blog more in 2020?
Some of my favorite bloggers stopped this year, and if you look back, I published next to nothing myself.
So I’d like to invite both you (and myself) to do more photo blogging next year.
Are you in?
yuri rasin says
I’m in Chris, now the most challenging part is to sticking to it haha. I enjoyed your post and images, thanks for the motivation