Most of you know that I have been writing photography content for the last decade with my current onecameraonelens and ourlifeonfilm websites as well as my previous mgaphotography website (I do have other little websites I run, but they are not updated as much for to concentrating on the main websites). Well, in the decade before writing about photography I was a staff writer for a gaming magazine plus I wrote articles for many other gaming and tech based websites as a freelance writer as well as my own tech-blog I ran on Blogspot.
Over that last two decades I have learned a lot about writing and most importantly about the people who read your writing. What I’m going to do today is just share a few things that I’ve learned in that time.
“Writing without bias is important…“
You learn early that any bias you have shows up in your writing. We are all humans with a certain bias, and the only way you can bypass this human flaw is to use everything you’re writing about and look deep into it. Everything has a positive and a negative, and the only way you can compare that is by using a multitude of different products.
I never write about anything I’ve not used in depth before, you soon realise that if you do, people pick up on that straight away. It is a reason I never talk about medium format cameras or 360° cameras or shooting galaxies at night, I’ve never used or done those things, and no amount of reading about it can compare to using or doing it.
“You can’t please everyone, all the time…“
No matter how good your articles are, no matter how much hands on knowledge you have and no matter how much you’ve researched by chatting to people you take out, or meet while out etc, you always get people who will not agree with you.
While the majority of people are happy that you know what you’re talking about, some people are just stuck in their bubble (be it watching too much YouTube, or heavily involved in a small camera club or that’s just the way they are!). They will argue that black is white, because they believe the hype, or is the only thing they’ve ever used. You expect that, it’s the same in all aspects of life, and it will never change.
“Honesty is always better…“
Forgetting any bias, it is always important to write as honest as you can. I am a tech guy, and I’ve worked in technical support in one industry or another over the years, so I understand when people will or will not have issues with perhaps using software, or updating their cameras or even something as simple (to some of us) as just using the camera and it’s menus.
For this reason, I like to keep things simple and honest. There are plenty of technical websites out there if people need that (or people simply message me if they want to know something).
“It’s important to conclude…“
A conclusion or final thoughts section is important. It is here you can put your thoughts in a context of your personal photography. You might have writen an excellent review, praising everything because the product or camera is genuinely excellent. However, in the conclusion you can compare it more to your needs that you did in the rest of the article.
It’s a place to lay down your thoughts in broader strokes. A place where someone can skip to if they want and get an idea without reading the whole thing. It’s a summery and it’s often less formal than the rest of the article.
“Understand that not everyone reads everything…“
This is quite important. No matter how much enthusiasm you have in your writing, people will gravitate to different things.
I have visitors who only like or comment on wildlife photography, or only on street photography. I have people who absolutely love when I post landscape images and they look forward to those posts.
Of course, there are also people who will only read articles and are not interested in the photos, while many, many people only come to the site from a Google search or through someone who has linked to the website.
“Audience size is not initially important…“
This is a huge one and something that puts many writers off. The initial size of your audience is not important. If your work is good enough, the article will build up an audience of weeks, months or even years!
It’s great to see post numbers rising when it first put up a post, it’s equally nice to see likes and comments instantly appear. However, looking at your statistics and seeing articles you wrote a long time ago is when you really appreciate things.
“Make friends in the writing community…“
Give to others what you’d hope to receive. Like people’s posts, comment, share their articles and communicate. Together we are stronger.
My name is Mark G Adams and I run Photography By Mark G Adams. I am a professional photographer from South Wales, shooting weddings, events and portraits as well as running meets and workshops. For fun I like to shoot landscapes, wildlife and occasionally do street photography. Enjoy my website as I share my knowledge learned over decades of working and having fun in photography.
You can find all the latest articles and blogs on my homepage here.
My main photography social media page is my Photography By Mark G Adams page.
Nikon Recipes for the Z system can be found here.
You can find a complete list of my gear here.
One Camera One Lens Photography 