We’ve all seen great photos here in the Photography topic of Connect and quite often together with the title of the post, the photos speak for themselves and we say “wow, what a great photo”. However, I’m finding more and more each day that some photos, while they might be great, the story behind them can be significantly improved with some descriptive words to describe the place (e.g. a beach, a lake, or a mountain), or thing (e.g. a building, flower, statue or tree), or the situation (e.g. a sunset, rainbow). While I agree with the core message in the great post How to tell a story through your photography, I believe that no matter how good a photo is, it would be made much, much better if a great description of the photo is also added. Where is this beach? When did you visit there? What else did you see there? Where did you take this sunset snap? What is this flower? Why did you take the photo? Why do you like it? What camera and perhaps camera settings did you use? etc etc etc. I see it a bit like reviews on Maps, we could simply give a 5 star rating of a cafe and add a photo of our coffee but not write a review, say nothing, zero, zilch about the cafe, the ambiance, the coffee, the service, the location etc etc etc. Your review readers would very likely say ‘yeah, and, what the heck?’ Was it a god coffee? What about the wait staff service? Was the cafe clean? Is it accessible friendly? And so on!
Yes the ‘best photos tell a story by sparking an emotion or sharing a message’ but I believe that that story could be significantly enhanced by the photographer sharing some details about it. Yes you may get some likes, but imagine how many more likes you would get by sharing more information about the photo and by engaging with your post’s (Map and Connect) readers!
I don’t know about you however I’ve written this post because I look at some photos here on Connect and say to myself “hmmm, yeah, and?”. In other words, I’m left wanting or feel cheated or short changed. I’m keen to know more about the photo and why you took it, why you like, why did you post it and so on. In other words engage with me! Help me to better understand and appreciate the photo(s) better. Sure some might think “hmmm, nice photo” and give you a Like but this is a lost opportunity. Let’s make it much more exciting! Tell me more and let’s really engage. Make me want to be there myself and see the place, thing or whatever myself.
I do hope you follow the point I’m trying to make and can see the positive in what I’m trying to say here. My hope is that if we all were to do this we would significantly improve the quality of Connect posts, particularly those in this Photography topic, and no doubt the reviews we write on Maps.
What do you think?
ps: I wrote this post several times but deleted it. I was worried that I might offend some. But then after seeing more and more of these wanting photos, I felt that I needed to write it! I felt that it might help some! Again please see this as intended, a constructive criticism.
