Every now and then I ask someone a simple question, “What do you do with your photos?”
The answer almost always arrives a lil sheepishly, “Oh, I just shoot for myself.”
And yeah, that’s valid. Truly.
Photography can be deeply personal. Quiet. A private conversation between you and the world.
A walk through a park in the hills, a sliver of afternoon light hitting a kitchen table, the way your friend laughs when they forget the camera is there. Sometimes making photographs is simply about noticing that life is happening.
Not to tell you how to live your life, but hey, those photographs deserve to see daylight.
A Dance Concert?
Think about a child’s dance recital. Or their weekend game of sportsball. No one in the audience believes the kid on stage is about to join the Australian Ballet. No one watching from the sidelines thinks their nephew is headed straight for the AFL Grand Final.
Maybe one day, but that’s not the point.
We show up anyway.
We sit in slightly uncomfortable chairs. We clap too loudly. We cheer when the choreography goes sideways. Because someone we care about is making something. Practicing something. Becoming something.
We want to see it.
Your photography is no different. And yet, most photographs today live a strangely lonely life. They’re taken with care, enthusiasm, curiosity; my favourite one, intention… and then they’re filed away. A folder on a desktop. A memory card in a drawer. Or worse, a hard drive slowly drifting toward corruption like some digital penitentiary.
Locked up.
Unseen.
Quiet.
Meanwhile, the photographer who made them believes something slightly tragic:
“That’s fine. They were only for me.”
Can I tell you a secret about what you do with your photos?
We want to see your work.
Not because you’re in the National Gallery of Australia. Not because you’ve “made it.” Not because your images have been deemed important by the mysterious gatekeepers of art.
We want to see them for the same reason we go to the recital. Because you made something.
So what’s the best way to share your photography? What do yo do with your photos?
Make it real. Print something and gift it to a friend. A small photograph tucked into a card has a way of lingering on fridges and bookshelves for years.
Make a photo book; nothing fancy. Even one from a big online chain store will do. Leave it on your coffee table. Guests will pick it up. Conversations will start.
Or go a little further.
Put ten photographs on a wall. Invite people over. Call it an exhibition. Why not?
If you’re around Melbourne, you could even wander into Loop Art & Photo Space and talk to us about showing a small body of work. It happens more often than you might think.
The point isn’t prestige. It’s presence.
Photography was never meant to live forever inside folders called FINAL_FINAL_v3. It was meant to exist in the world. In hands. On walls. In books. In conversation.
So if you’ve been wondering what the best way to share your photography is, the answer is simple.
Make Something.
Let people see what you see.