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My thoughts about sharing photos and Ipernity
Orginally wtitten as a reply to a comment by Homaris on Ipernity which can be found on Ipernity News Dec 1st 2023

I have read your comment a number of times now and you have made me think once again about this strange idea of sharing my photographs with people I do not know.

I too will stay on Ipernity as long as it exists but why should my very limited variety of photographs be of any interest to anyone else on Ipernity?

Even my ‘best’ photographs are really only going to be of greatest interest to me. I have thousands of photos on Ipernity now and they are poorly curated. What would drive me to improve that? I would need to have criteria I believed had value and I have never come to any final conclusions. [I have a free account on Flickr with 1000 photos stored so I have to delete one to post a new photo. I am someone who has not been good curating my ‘best’ photos and this my have turned out to be a happy accident as they do seem to be gradually getting more interesting (to my eye at least at least).]

I’m no longer sure why I share my photographs and I think it is now just a habit. In the days before photo sharing web sites I created my own web site to record my hill walks and bird watching snaps. These were of interest to some of the people I worked with and eventually I moved on to photo websites like Flickr and found people who lived locally sharing their photos. Over time I have met some of these people and keep some contact with a few of them. Some contacts on Flickr I have been trading comments with for 15 years or more without ever meeting them in real life.

I ended up on Ipernity in 2013 along with many more people frustrated by Flickr’s every changing interface. It’s even worse now.

I agree with you about Ipernity being more about a social life than true Photography sites but that’s a good thing in my opinion as the technical issues and hardware chat around cameras are of very limit interest to me.

So how to make Ipernity grow and attract more users?

I don’t know but suspect that many of the users on Ipernity are at least middle aged ?

Should that be the biggest selling point? - Sell it to older people that are tired of ever changing websites, adverts and flashing images. Ipernity the last photo sharing website you will ever need. It’s friendly with built in translation for many languages with an interface that rarely has any changes and you are even remembered after you die.

Ipernity: Where old photographers live in their final years.

Colin Ashcroft (aged 70 later this year so I will soon be on borrowed time)



4 comments

Amelia said:

Yes, the older generation are certainly the target audience. I am now 82 and still don't feel that I am living on borrowed time.
10 months ago

Colin Ashcroft replied to Amelia:

I still have no idea how to get new users on Ipernity having failed to interest anyone I mention it to date. Good to know that you are going strong at 82 it seems there a many people living well in their 80s especially ladies in my experience!
10 months ago

Isisbridge said:

Younger people seem to have an inbuilt ADHD chip, seeking instantaneous kicks with no time for reflection. Their photos will be mostly selfies, or quick snaps to show off where they've been. The rest of the time they don't notice anything around them, because they're too busy texting.
9 months ago

Colin Ashcroft replied to Isisbridge:

Yes it’s like yesterday’s photos already have no value,.
9 months ago ( translate )