Some thoughts for today by Joe Farace
“I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like.”—Orson Welles
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m only semi-active on social media. I mostly use social media as a way to communicate with the readers my blogs and books telling them about new happenings or new and updated posts on this and my car photography website/blog. I also try to post photographs from time to time on Instagram. Every now and then (I don’t remember when exactly) Pinterest sends me an email showing my most popular images. Here was a recent result:
My first reaction was: “Really?” But when I got to thinking about it; Pinterest users seems to have focused on the main themes of my most recent work, including (left to right) glamour, automobiles and infrared photography. But what I find most interesting is that the first two specific images have not changed in popularity in a few years? Ya know, I’ve made a lot of photographs (and posted them on Pinterest) since these were originally shot and posted.
Thoughts About These Photographs
You can learn how I made the “blue sky” infrared photograph, a technique that’s explained here. The fish-eye shot of the front end of Studebaker automobile still surprises me. I don’t even know what possessed me to make that image in the first place but it reigns as one of my most popular Pinterest shots. Interestingly, the glamour image at left above that Pinterest users like best is a behind-the-scenes lighting setup shot, which shows, I think, that a lot of my followers are photographers because they want to see how I made the portrait rather than what the photograph itself looks like. It’s below.
Here it is:
How I made this portrait: I photographed Stevie against a draped muslin backdrop that was unfortunately destroyed when my basement, where my home studio is located, was flooded a few years ago. The lighting setup is as shown on Pinterest in the above left screen capture. The camera used was a Canon EOS 5D Mark I and EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens (80mm.) Exposure was 1/125 sec at f/8 and ISO 100.
Ultimately the answer to all my questions about image popularity boils down to who do I make the photographs for? The number of photographs that I’ve made for clients is small and during the pandemic fell of a cliff. In the pre-pandemic past, I would like to shot model portraits that were used for their on-line portfolios or pay sites such as Patreon, OnlyFans and Bentbox. Since the pandemic began I have had no shoots, but I remain optimistic. Each month on this blog, I write a post about Looking for a New Muse, hoping to find a model, aspiring model, or maybe somebody like Stevie who was looking to have some fun and get some great photographs of herself.
PS: Just a reminder: My Joe Farace Live Podcast #3 is live now on my YouTube channel, Joe Farace’s Videos, and features a look at the Leica Z2X and my experiences shooting 22-year old Agfa color film in a 40-year old Canon SLR, plus some information on where I get my ideas for blog posts!