How to Turn into Full-Time Photographer Using Instagram
Instagram hit 600 million users in December 2016 reports show in just 6months it grew 100million users. It had taken 9months to garner 100millon and hit 500 million users. This reports clearly show the Accelerating growth of Instagram. Reports show 300 million users of 600million are using the Instagram app daily this show Instagram soon going to play a crucial role among social sites and become a hub for advertising.
This is the right time to catch this advantage and use Instagram for proper use of building a career. Many photographers don't have any Formal Education in photography but with help of Internet, they are able to turn into Full-Time Photographer by using the power of social media and telling stories which attract people and help in the building of loyal followers and build a perfect portfolio.
Image Sharing App Instagram is best for building loyal followers and maintain a perfect portfolio.
Steve Mccurry Instagram account
Few Techniques are shared by Famous Photographers which made them famous from being unknown. This is achievable only through hard work and not possible in one night so be prepared for dedication and hard work to get loyal followers.
Consistency
This word plays the main role and every technique revolves around it. Consistency means from finding your style of photography to shooting style and editing it. If you like shooting portraits, to maintain a consistent feed you have to shoot all of them in the same style. Here are few Tricks how can you do it.
Light
It is important shooting all your pictures in the same type of light. Images which are shot during mid-day and those which are shot during evening won't look same after you apply editing to them. So maintaining same light for all your photos is important.
Editing
This is another important aspect which you should nail it down. Initially, prefer Lightroom for editing as it is used by top photographers. Initially, don't prefer using photoshop first become a master at it then show its magic on your photos. Don't post photos with which you did experiments while editing.
Quality over Quantity
Don't upload random photos which do not match your feed when you don't have better photos to upload or only for sake of uploading something or other. Wait till you get a perfect shot and you work on it to match your feed. Treat your Instagram as a mini portfolio think photos you upload in the feed are those photos you upload in front of people in a Photo Exhibition. Ideally, you want Feed to look best when you have nothing to post.
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Image Credit- Steve Mccurry
Engagement
Find people who are into the same thing as you connect with them leave a good comment on their photos. A good comment like “Hey, this is really good I like how you always capture light and shadows so perfectly" well done.” Now that’s engagement, the person will most likely go through your account and do the same. It’s much more effective than just saying “nice” or “cool”.
Tip- Commenting on people with big accounts who get 100+ comments they hardly reply one, two comments find small accounts and ask for collaborations. Comment on their photo asking for collaborations and take unedited version and edit it in a better way and post on your feed and mention his on image curation and mention your collaboration and he do the same with your photos this help in building connections easily.
Hashtags
This is where everyone is not good at it. To grow Organically find Hashtag which is not very common this helps to get photo notified easily Hashtag which is very popular have lot of photos attached to them and it make you hard to get notified as the main idea here to get picture notify easily
Tip- Display purposes help you building a proper collection of hashtags. Type keyword in search option then you will get Hashtags related to it.
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Image Credit- Steve Mccurry
Weekend Hashtag Projects
Every Friday Instagram posts a Challange known as WHP(Weekend Hashtag Project). They give you a Subject with examples, and you have a whole week to capture photos related to the given subject. Instagram then select the best captures and post them on their account. This helps a lot in a growth of followers.
Tip- Post your Photos on Sunday as they get a lot of submissions I don't think staff goes through everyone's post So posting on Sunday helps in reaching your post to staff easily.
InstaMeets
Be active in the community in your area. They normally have meetups every weekend. These Meets help you meet people like you who are interested in photography and you can build relations easily and eventually shoot more often which means more collaborations
