FUTURE SUCCESS IS BASED IN FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Here's the quick of the matter: If STEEM does not implement and innovate photographers (and other content creators) will never come here and for that matter most users will leave. But here's the thing that's just a general rule for almost every company and site. So that's not really news to anyone.
If things stay the same we'll get even less growth... and to be honest for about the last month we've had little to no growth in many areas except price but that's a market thing. The beginning of the year the growth was pretty awesome by comparison.
However, I don't think it's fair to predict the future while stuck in the past or by insisting things are bound to stay the same. You have to assume there will be improvements and you have to predict based off of those.
Will it all be sunshine and rainbows?
Impatiently waiting
One issue is that Steem / Steemit has been much slower at new developments than most of us would like. But let's take a step back... most sites that we use and love are slower at iteration than we want them to be. If you look back at this post I did yesterday I mentioned the major changes FB did and looking back we don't realize it took years. They also had the luxury of lots and lots of moving parts so they could make changes pretty often to lots of them. Also a ton of employees and big time investments. And expectations for social media weren't really set... they were setting them, now new social media is living in those shadows.
So we will spend the bulk of this post talking about how future developments may impact steemit and the photography community, but first a little more insight...
VALUE TO PHOTOGRAPHERS AS IT STANDS
Comparison
To be honest the photography community on steemit is TINY in comparison to almost any other social media. I estimate it at somewhere between 100-300 active photographes posting content... if that. I think there are only about 1000-3000 people who dabble in photography and that's not active posters/voters. (Do you know of a method to come up with better estimates of these numbers?)
It's also smaller in general numbers and smaller in number of the common social media influencers. In fact almost zero of the common name photography industry influencers are on Steemit and I doubt even a tiny small fraction know it exists. I know quite a few of them from 2011-2012 the Google Plus days even though there have been many more (and different ones) that rode themore recent Instagram wave to insta-famous-ness.
Photographers and Social Media
Let me take a moment and explain that photographers are chasers... they chase new opportunities again and again because each new opportunity is a chance for a new person to stake their claim of new followers whereas it's hard to wiggle into old places like FB, Instagram, Youtube and various photography forums because people are often satiated with the number of people the already follow. There aren't a whole lot of ways to make money as a photographer and most of them do have benefits from social media following. You're either marketing photoshoots to people, showing off your portfolio for busnisses to hopefully see, or you're convincing other aspiring photographers to learn from you so you're selling to other photogaphers. (actions, classes, workshops etc)
Let me say I think it is GREAT that most photographers have not found their way to steemit yet.
I think photographers like the idea of being an early adopter and grabbing their user names and getting some quick attention on a site where people are begging for new people to follow... but the truth is Photographers don't stick with Early Adopter sites well. They also abandon ship pretty early. Vero, Ello, GPlus etc etc. Even years ago when some jumped on to Instagram but then kinda backed off until it was really hobbiest, celebrities and pretty much non-photographers that took instagram mainstream and that's when photographers committed in mass. They are quick to jump on but tend to just ride waves better. (same with most people... it's nothing unique really) One of the main concepts of an early adopter site is an understanding that most people won't last
I would rather a photographer wait 6 months and join than they join now and last 6 days
It's not ready yet and that's why i'm not insisting my friends like Trey jump in yet... later
STEEMIT NOT READY
Truth of the matter is that STEEM/ STEEMIT isn't ready for mass adoption yet. I personally haven't invited very many people yet because I know that it would require me really guiding them every step of the way. I tend to just focus on people that have the mentality to handle an early adopter site. People like @derekkind @caseygrimley ... then there are people I talk to all the time and am totally willing to teach and keep motivated like @sjarvie5 and I think it was @photogames community that got her motivated.
IT WILL BE...
But that said I do think we will see mass adoption and that's my big prediction. In other words I'm bullish long term if I'm bearish right now. I think it's actually healthier we don't have massive growth until some things get changed.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
These are the core things that I think will lead to more mass adoption
IMPROVED SIGN UP SYSTEM
I didn't think it would be as big of an issue. But it is... Many times friends have mentioned it and therefore i've seen the impacts. It's an issue and it needs to be fixed. You can't make people wait 1 week that's just the simple logic
MORE FAMILIARITY WITH BLOCKCHAIN
As they learn about other blockchains they get acquanted with key benefits of steemit.
- Blockchain's ability to store information
- Crazy long crypto-graphic passowords and the concept of "keys"
- Benefits of decentralization
- Benefits of non-censorship or non-centralized censorship.
- CryptoCurrencies and volatility etc
COMMUNITIES / #HiveMind
From what I understand of this new Blockchain function it will be a HUGE boon to the whole ecosystem. It will for sure impact photography as well.
I SEE:
- I see several communities doing an amazing job of curating and showing off amazing content
- I see places where you come and you have a pretty good expectation that you'll see great content
- I see @Photogames having their own community page bringing our already stellar community closer together
- I see more interaction between photographers and creating better connections
- I see more users/photographers educating eachother and helping us be more effective at steemit
- I see people realizing they're from the same location for the first time.
- I see more people connecting over lots more common interests.
FOUR Cs
If we think back to the FOUR C's it will help with a couple of them.
- Content, Connection, Commitment and Capital
It will specially help with connections and content... to some extent it gives people a thing to do and a place to go and check out when they're on the site those little touches will make an impact on Commitment as they continue to find things to keep drawing them back
FINDING PEACE WITH ROLE OF TRENDING
- I think the community in general has to start finding peace with the economic model of steemit. That doesn't mean giving up on taking it to places they want to see it go. But they to realize that the whole site can't be built upon TRENDING being the end all be all of the site. I think they need to realize that Trending isn't ALL ABOUT showing best content first. I think they have to understand there is an economic underlying of steemit and people will continue to treat it as a business and an investment and that doesn't have to be bad. Adding in communities will go a long ways to making them feel comfortable with this because the desire for stronger curation methods can find a release valve over there. I also think businesses have there own sort of release valve mechanism in steem and it's not ads ... but they'll be one day paying us instead of us getting nothing out of ads. And perhaps that will bring some people to peace about the trending aspect. _Perhaps it's true that some will never find peace about trending and will continue to stay away but the more people who find ways to USE the economic system instead of insisting it must ONLY be used for curation of content. I think there are ways we haven't thought of yet to continue an economic mindset and a content mindset that don't depend on destroying either.
PRICE OF STEEM
what fun is a prediction of the future of steem without talking about prediction of the price of steem.
We deal in probabilities that change and what I may think today may and should change in a week based off of new information. My prediction is going to be a view of a positive scenario (but keep in mind a negative scenario is always a possibility)
For me for the last week or so I was thinking we'd see a dip (which is presently happening) this is a healthy correction that would help us to get to 60k satoshi perhaps even 70k satoshi. I think there is a general bull market for a while on most coins in the market. Then I think there's another healthy correction sometime this summer. I'm hoping and expecting steem to dip from that 60-70k range and perhaps find a resting place around 30-40k.
Then I think or predict we see another end of the year rally and even if only slightly larger than last year that would be healthy and exciting for steem. Because then I see steem at 80-100k levels possibly at the same time bitcoin creates another All Time High. If they both peak together which tends to happen I think we could see levels from 16-25/usd for steem.
Obviously all this is just predictions based on one probability, which i think is pretty well in the realm of possibility. But every week with more and more data we start to form new ideas.
HOW THE FUTURE COULD ROLL OUT
(don't bank on these)
- We have flat growth for a while longer
- Price of BTC and STEEM go up in may/june
- Hivemind and Improved sign up system are realeased
- Steem Price rallies even more because of that
- Communities/Hivemind starts to pull together communities (and community leaders)
- Because of sign up, communities and price we see way faster growth of users.
- Some photo influencers (from other locations) start jumping in
- We see a typical photographer flash join aka photographer gold rush
- Half of those photographers are not willing to learn how it works and don't last more than a week
- In general though we have tons more photographers and hopefully we have the ability to educate them and keep them happy until they have connections and capital to feel more comfortable.
- Because of higher rewards and a larger base of active users YOUTUBERS will start using Steemit more.
- Later in the year SMTs are finished and I don't think they effect STEEM too much for photographers but it boosts the price again.
- There will be several new competitors to Steemit which helps educate about the concept of social media on blockchain.
- Then towards end of the year the whole market rallies again and prices go crazy if not somewhat unsustainable again.
@PHOTOGAMES ROLE
I think Photogames community along with Photofeed are two of the main glues for the photography community right now, contests are fun but I don't see them as community builders and people don't sustain motivation or "commitment" because of them. Right now the most important thing @photogames can do is stick around and be consistent. It's not gonna be the large net that gathers Every photographer together but I think it's the force that Makes/developes/empowers the movers and shakers in the photo community on Steemit. I hope @photogames doesn't create followers but turns them into leaders who feel like they can help all those new photographers that may join in at any time with a small spark of interest. Those photographers that often come flying in and last a moment unless they find fertile ground and a reason to stick around.
I say keep a close eye on those who participated in the more demanding Season2 of @photogames... those are the names you want to remember. @photogames did not make them leaders it just helped bring it out a bit and bring them together.
Now a plug for the @photogames account and the photogames discord
How to help
Right now one of the best ways is directing new photographers to initiatives like #photofeed or even #travelfeed / @travelfeed and even @photogames specially as we head to a format of simple daily games for a while. Then going to those hashtags and giving out votes. We dont' have to wait for whales to make them feel good about being here. We can all help build a desire to commit for the people joining. #photofeed and if you dare even #photography is a good place to start voting and commenting on people's stuff.
BOLD CRAZY PREDICTIONS
In the end if I were to make wild wild guesses I would think the following.
USERS: 1 million users now - 3 million by end of year.
PRICE: $3.50 price right now - $20/usd price at some point this year... likely very end.
PHOTOGRAPHERS: I think there are maybe 200-300 active photographers right now - I think 2000-6000 by end of the year.
Let's see what happens, shall we. What do you think? Do you have any predictions?
NOTE: I reserve the right to change my mind
I wouldn't call myself a photographer... I'm just someone who likes to pick up their camera and take pictures! :) I've never promoted anything I've done and the whole instagram/popularity thing never interested me.
It was a crypto youtuber that got me to look into what steemit was. He was talking about it all the time, he was using it, promoting it and now he's gone! : /
You need to have your head in the crypto space to end up here though, there's no doubt about that. Out of all my friends, I have one that knows what cryptocurrency is. The others are clueless and they're happy to stay that way. My husband has one friend who got us interested and a few others who know about it but think it is too risky. But on a whole, I find people from my generation are clueless.
#photogames was the first photography based community I found, I think together you've built a great community!! Looking back (and I haven't been here that long) it was probably #photogames that kept me here. I'm still quite clueless on how to use steemit properly, I'm happy to admit that, easier use with clear instructions really needs to be rectified on steemit's behalf but what I have found is that the kind of people who stick around here are kind and descent people which is refreshing to all the other social media outlets.
I hope all your predictions come to fruition. I agree that the space will only grow, I just hope that it doesn't grow so big that we lose the feel that we have now, that it isn't destroyed and lose it's uniqueness that it now has over other social media platforms.
Love the comment that's why i voted it to the top.
Happy to hear about your experience with @photogames and I'm now interested which Crypto Youtuber because one of them motivated me to go back to an account i created and never used and give it more of a chance.
Thanks @jarvie : )
It was Zach from Crypto Coin News. https://steemit.com/@cryptocoinnewz
He only stuck around for a month. He does 3-4 youtube videos a day and would always say to follow him on twitter for more up to date information and then when he got onto steemit he was plugging that too which made me think, what is this steemit?
He covered steemit in a couple of his videos but it still wasn't enough to really know what it was about.
I'm sure it's not the same youtuber as yours but I'm now intrigued as to who motivated you...
Excellent post. I appreciate that you really put your heart into this.
Sorry I missed this months photo-games but sometimes life gets in the way!
I think hive-mind and communities will be a big breakthrough . I also think Steemit.com might just tweak the algorithm for calculating the trending pages so that upvote is not the only metric and have potentially multiple trending options in account settings for how trending is set. We are already seeing third parties applications do this.
I am looking forward to seeing some block-chain photographic competition (ONO/Appics/etc) as it will force Steemit to innovate more quickly which is a good thing for everyone. 6000 real photographers by the end of the year? That sounds both exhausting and exciting at the same time!
Thanks for all the thoughtful discussions over the past 4 months!
That was a good read! Its really is interesting coming from the world of Instagram as a photographer where that is all you see to coming to Steemit and it is a challenge to find other photographers. I'm here to grow with Steemit as its something I truly believe in and refuse to give up on. If the effort is given, Steemit has the ability to grow into something amazing. Have a good day dude!
Funny how instagram is based on photography and full of photographers but the influential photographers from other social media were really really late to the game (me included) and it opened it up to lots of new and very capable photographers to make themselves known.
I talked a bit more about instagram on my long previous post.
One interesting take is that instagram was built partly on the celebration of unrewarded theft of content. But i digress...
I think instagram will start loosing lots of interest of tempermental photographers as people stop going after the Gold Rush that is no longer there.
I agree with you completely! There are so many hubs that showcase others work but all the photographer gets is "photo credit" when the hub owner is making major deals with businesses.
I feel Instagram really started its road to death about a year ago and more known users are disappearing all the time from the app. IG ruined itself and I'm glad I've been able to move on from it.
You made some really good points there. I agree that Steemit currently is far from ready for mass adoption, but the community feature has the potential to make some huge improvements to the usability of Steem.
With SMTs, there will be multiple photography platforms launching on the Steem Blockchain, but they will be separate from Steemit and the Steem currency. This has a lot of potential, but could also lead to the small photography community splitting into different platforms..
I agree about it being too early for most photographers. Still surprising that Trey hasn't jumped in, it would be hard for him not to make money here.
I'm a stock photographer and I thought other stock photographers would like steemit but it seems that almost all of them don't understand or trust cryptocurrency yet. That baffles me a bit because I thought they would be more interested. Most of them could at least make a bit of extra money doing some mining or posting here. This is my attempt to spread the good news about steemit that didn't go the way I expected :) http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/anyone-tried-using-their-images-on-steemit/
I read through all the comments. Interesting but pretty much as expected. I can imagine a conversation like that back in the FB early days
What I've been noticing (and happened to me personally), is the fact that if a person isn't in the crypto world, then they have no interest in or knowledge of steemit. If they aren't already on the exchanges or researching coins/tokens, then they also have no use for the "money" they would make on here either.
But I agree with your view, and do think that as crypto itself becomes more mainstream, steemit will grow rapidly with it.
Same wavelength kinda"
Right after posting I updated the post with "MORE FAMILIARITY WITH BLOCKCHAIN"
I think that is something to take into account.
Nice addition, just went back and checked it out. Totally agree.
As a semi-new user myself, steemit was a bit hard to figure out at first. There are so many crap posts to dig through to find decent content. I still search daily to try to find more talented photographers to follow. Recently I feel like I've gotten the hang of it more, but the learning curve is steep, and causes most minnows to give up before ever getting noticed.
I am perhaps putting to high of expectation on HIVEMIND/Communities but I think it will also address this issue as well. Places for people to go and understand where they're at, then they expand from there.
I'm happy with the fact that there are not many active photographer on this platform, yet. I feel like i have more space to grow.
They're coming... we don't know when they will but they will, it's a bit overwhelming when you see the wave. Though admittedly photographers have done this so many times they're getting a bit burnt out and cynical of these rushes.
I wonder if Steemit will ever start rewarding only photos as content. Some of the photographers that I saw quit didn't want to spend time on the 4c's and just drop their photos. And that didn't work that well for them.
But with Steemit so focused on "text or video content" and almost counting the words, the early birds among photographer need to change their style. I am curious to see who is willing to adapt.
I will reward people who post only pictures but just like in instagram I expect to know at least something about it. I think instagram picture only posts suffer just the same. But I don't expect people to write long blog posts like me. And I will reward so yes the answer is they not only will start but they have... because my vote counts.
I think it's an ok space for steemit to be in challenging the simpler posts like FB/instagram. (not 100% certain but seems ok)
I know some people want it to challenge Medium or traditional blogs. But I think communities will take it the other direction towards smaller content even more.
But that being said longer more thought out content will just get rewarded more.
With the Steepshot app, they tried getting the Steemit Instagram effect. I wonder how well that will do in the future.
(Oh, that explains why my Instagram account never became big :))
I think that there already is quite a lot of appreciation for good photography. Look at #photofeed and all the other photo curation projects, few of the photos there are proper blog posts. But the way that Steemit is currently made, it is primarily a blogging platform, so photos should never be posted alone, but accompanied by at least one small paragraph telling the story of the photo.
dedicated photography curation accounts pay attention to -just- photos. But the "regular" Steemians don't upvote them that often, by the looks of it. And you can't really rely solely on the curation upvotes ;)
I sometimes go through the "new" section of #photofeed and upvote the photos I like and I think that many others are doing the same :)
But nobody should expect to earn more for a photo than for a really good blog post that incorporates a lot of great photography. The problem is, that many lesser-known authors have their posts sitting at a few cents, no matter if they post a single photo or a longer blog posts.
I might be bitter... but what I see is that only the curation accounts (and competition accounts) benefit from the upvotes for the photos. This is of course a generalisation and exceptions are always there.
I think the problem with user retention is the trending pages.... high expectations and little results for new users!! Some will make it but some will come in and not think the rewards are worth the effort!
I've been updating this post so not sure if the section "FINDING PEACE WITH ROLE OF TRENDING" came before or after you commented.
But i do understand the role of expectations.
Communities and new methods of connection and finding value will be important. There's way too much hinging on trending right now that it's unhealthy... and that includes how we view the role of trending.
Hivemind to the rescue?
Yep didn’t see that!!! Re-reading!
Great post @jarvie, so many good points.
The photo community is tiny here for a reason. IMO people have somewhat of a superiority complex when it comes to steemit and photos and what is and isn't value. People see some posting a photos as low value. Very rarely are great photos here rewarded. Few understand the work that goes into one photo sometimes.
I totally agree about the sign-up process for steemit. There needs to be something done. Wait times are too long.
On the other hand... who's here to reward them? We are small in numbers.
People get a taste of a @Curie vote or a @cryptoctopus vote and think that should be the norm.
In my previous post I talked about how the mentality should be working on the 4Cs and starting looking at the baseline minimum your posts make as being the target for growth.
I think photographers should stop thinking their photos are worth $100 because they posted something amazing. I make 1-2 steem minimum on a post and success for me is moving that to 2-4 then 4-8. .... BY WORK.
Jumps of that are just bonuses.
And this idea that you work hard and get to 1 steem per post isn't appealing then early adopter steemit is not for them. They need to adjust the mentality. Curie/travelfeed/photofeed won't pay their bills consistently They need to work on all 4Cs
They need to see it more as a long term investment and not if i spend 1hr on this picture I expect to make this much at the end of 7days.
All great points and great a way to look at the topic. 🍻
Agreed. I see the signup process as especially urgent. I've been trying for weeks to signup and was not successful until my buddy @justinmullet just bought me an account. Until they fix signups, Steem is going nowhere. Even if they make so people can pay a $1 fee with a credit card, that would be a big improvement. But as we know, there's so much free online, it will take some doing (i.e. big hurdle) to get content consumers to pay.
It is my opinion they're giving up on the old sign up system because they have something new in the works... don't quote me on it but that's my guess.
Great post, I'm better not gonna presume the future, don't want to get disappointed lol. But yes I could clearly see how photographers lose interest in posting here. I follow only 52 people and I choose carefully who I follow because I don't want bullshit in my feed. They are mostly photographers and 2 weeks ago I looked how much of them are still daily active. Only 13 people were... well that a little depressing :D
Such is the very normal nature of an early adopter site. Nothing to be too depressed about. Be happy 13 of them can handle it and the others will come back when there is more mass adoption.
Great post, so much information. I really hope the photography community does grow on Steemit, there are so many possibilities.
For sure!
Interesting and optimistic predictions! I think the sign up process and learning curve to jump on Steemit is a huge hurdle for the majority of the population. I think photographers will come after the masses once they see it as a marketing platform to sell their work.
I think Steemit should adopt it's own marketing strategy with the slogan "Come for the money, stay for the community."
I also don't spread the word of Steemit on my other channels because of the reasons you mentioned. Too many people will come and see the challenges of getting started and dismiss the whole idea, never to return.
Yeah i should have written about the learning curve or simplification of the site goals for a beginner. It's true and that's why i've made a whole series of videos which I can give to my friends to help them as they get going. Even when sign up and communities start it will still be an issue. It was even an issue on FB and Gplus back in the days... but when there were more and more people the issue seemed to dissapear ... not because the site was all of a sudden easier to use... I just think there were so many people using it that answers were abundant. Also there was more incentive to figure it out.
Hey man, thank you for writing this! I will add something to "More Familiarity with the Blockchain*-section. Right now, Steemit is for geeks, and I think we cannot expect mass adoption unless the interface becomes more mature and user-friendly. It literally took me more than a month of active research before I had a basic idea of how things function on the blockchain. That's a steep learning curve, which doesn't help the retention rate! So maybe the development team should think about implementing a "for dummies" option in the interface with quick tips pop-ups that appear when hovering with the mouse over elements of the platform. Write them with style, and make them as clear as possible.
I tend to send people to busy.org now... even though i use steemit.com still.
And facebook had a similar problem early on... i had to explain how it worked for the first couple years... people just werent used to it.
But yeah steem is more focused on blockchain so that others developers can build on it... so we need to convimce busy.org to do those upgrades
Busy is the better alternative, but Steemit is still the flagship interface of the blockchain. If you are a new user, you will most likely end up on Steemit, and you might not stay long enough to get to know Busy. A friend of mine did just that - left the platform after just a few days because it was "way too complicated". She didn't even want to hear about Busy.
@jarvie nice photograph of mountain with the rainbow!
Very well-written and cool article! I don't have a lot to add - I'm just excited for the times to come and believe they will arrive soon. Glad to be here before that ;-)
So well said...
I don't consider myself as photographer, I just like photography and enjoy a lot playing around with cameras. I've work a lot taking pictures and we kinda work with that but it's just like a friend says that he know he's a sick digital illustrator but he don't consider himself as an artist. At the end you are what you think you are.
The @photogames opened our minds and many doors, we made contact with many photographers and since the day one of the #photogames we are learning from all of them and the whole experience.
Thanks a lot for sharing your "future" @jarvie!
These are some interesting thoughts! I've been on Steemit for about a month now and early on I found it frustrating that my photos were constantly being buried by either whale posts or low quality content boosted by bidbots.
The more I learn about this new communities update the more excited I am that there's a chance to establish more of a social side of the network. Right now it does feel like it's used as a business opportunity or investment more than a viable way of connecting people socially, but as I've explored deeper into the photo contest tags and curation services it's a breath of fresh air to find real human beings. Yes all my posts are still generally worth under a dollar, but it's the fact that real people are seeing my photos now that really motivates me to keep posting.
When I first joined I was one of those who though that I could just hop in and start making money, but quickly I realised that you have to build up circles of peers before that can happen. Even then, the real excitement here is being involved with blockchain social media before the general public even knows what a blockchain is (although I still have a very limited understanding of it ally myself). But for now I will keep posting my photos and building small amounts of crypto as we all wait to see what happens :)
Thank you for this post! I love photography but I am only an amateur. I too as many here "stumbled" upon steemit. I am pretty new here and I find your post insightful, informative and pretty on point. I have had the hardest time learning what, where and when to post. Really just with wrapping my head around the system altogether. Votes, curation, witnesses...?! I believe I still have a headache from trying to understand it all. Thankfully the part that was clear to me, and the reason I choose to stay is the desire for better content and reward for such. I believe in the steemit community. It is unlike anything else I have seen and I like it. I admit whales are a bit of a concern being a minnow, but I believe in the power of the community to help itself to make it work for each member. I did not know about #photogames, I will most definitely participate for now on. I did find a great community that helps and supports good content @curie . Thank you for sharing this post, it's excellent!
Resteemed, always great to hear really well thought out predictions, of course it's incredibly hard to tell what will happen with it all, is Steemit heading for the next 'Instagram' or the next 'Eye Em'? It's impossible to say for sure but I do agree that if we don't see some changes (sign up system being top of that list, and the ability to handle more users without the downtime that we've all experienced) then Steemit may well be replaced at the top of the Blockchain Social Media front.
I fully agree that when photographers do jump in, they will do so en-mass, especially within the niches, wedding photography for example, once a few hop over, the whole thing goes mad for a while, until people realise that it's persistence that pays off, and so we get a quick decline when most see little 'fast cash'. I also think a failure to understand the community aspect here on Steemit will increase the dropout rate.
In many ways it's all down to the mainstream adoption of blockchain too, although at this point I feel like we're far enough down the road to say that blockchain is here to stay!
Beautiful scenery and Extremes. Please know steemit.
Incredible post. I wouldn't classify myself as a photog....I just like to take pictures, and hopefully get better at it. I'm with you though - I'm actually enjoying the smallish community for now. It's nowhere near ready for a larger community to join - yet. And hopefully by that point I'll have built a little bit of a lead to compete with much better talent ;)
Hey @themarkymark I am a photographer, read this please. Photographers add value to steemit!
Haha your comment reminded me of this year old post and it was fun to re-read. Since then I still haven't invited any photographers but have been working hard to create every feature I'm thinking a photographer is gonna want. Still got a few very important ones on the to do list.