76 Comments

Thanks, Andy, for an alternative to social media. Like you, I haven't given it up, but I find it draining at times. I have always appreciated your thoughtful writing and your instinct for discovery, so you've gotten my attention.

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Thanks so much for these kind words, Irene. It's great to hear from you! And thank you for signing on as a paid subscriber. We're developing some audio features for the newsletter and supporters like you will help us realize these ideas. Stay in touch!

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Thanks Andy for the light but informative read, right length, interesting content and most importantly it sounds like you! Looking forward to more and hopefully contributing at some point. :-)

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The decline of Instagram has been pretty depressing. There are only so many times I can watch nice but pointless footage to the soundtrack of an old One direction song.

I just want to look at my own friends and photographers / creatives I chose and , of course, share my own work. Throw in a few ads to pay the bills and everyone should be happy. It's a shame they're not. Good luck with the venture and interesting where they take it.

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Thanks for this Andy. It’s much more appealing than the fractured bits of a social media feed, even a good feed. Looking forward to reading more.

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That's the idea — simplify and focus. Thank for looking, Peter!

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Nice work! Social media is great and all, but so many platforms, with their character limits and endless scrolling, render otherwise thoughtful ideas and conversations into something disposable and shallow. Images can certainly stand on their own in most places, but in terms of text, I definitely prefer this format to the soundbyte culture of Twitter. Looking forward to seeing it develop.

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Cheers, Bud — thanks for looking!

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Totally share your view with wanting a slightly more thoughtful platform to share photography. This is also part of the reason why I started writing my Substack newsletters too. So it's wonderful to see that you are reviving this now (giving people like myself a chance to discover it for the first time too!) .

If there is any way of helping or collaborating as part of this community, please do let me know. Keep up the great work Andy!

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Cheers, George! It sounds like we share some philosophies about photography and mindfulness. I'll look forward to reading your newsletter. Please email me anytime: hello@flakphoto.com

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Thank you for being a voice here! Super encouraged to hear more in the future.

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Thank you for looking, David! https://www.flakphoto.news/p/thank-you-for-looking

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Absolutely love the Herzog clip. Thank you for posting. Looking forward to following along.

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Thank you for reading!

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"That's H-E-R-Z-O-G in case you need to know how to spell it for my Academy Award..."

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You have a wonderful writing voice and a personal, honest approach to photography. Thank you.

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Thank you, Arizona!

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Have never done social media at all. I guess I am against the grain. Love to take pics but just with my phone which aren't that good.

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Hi Andy, I’m the 220 heart, 🥸 and that sounds electric, hope to be plugged somewhere soon.

Following your thoughts, I jumped over twitter, Instagram, Flickr, etc without stepping and here I am still alive.

What’s next?, AI? Not for me!

That’s a haiku, ain’t

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What a coincidence, I used an Arbus quote it one of my posts: https://whenhopewrites.substack.com/p/photographs-tell-stories-too. I adore her work! I think this is a wonderful space for artists, though I would love to see more! I'm delighted to have found you. By the way there is this site viewbug. I had a great experience connecting with others there in the past.

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I'll check that out! Thanks, Nadia. And I'm familiar with Viewbug. I should really give that another look. Thanks so much for reading the newsletter! I appreciate it.

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I don't know how accepting they are of nude art, but it was cool when I was there some 5 years ago lol. And you get to enter contests and win prizes.

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Social media...bah! I have a love hate relationship with it as I expect many of us do. Sometimes it bores me to death, sometimes I am excited by it! It can be a great source of inspiration and information but also irritation and frustration. I decided not to post anything over the Christmas and new year period and felt much less anxiety, I think I will continue this trend and not bow to the pressure of having to post at a certain time and day. Whether that will see me sinking into the social media mire never to seen again will remain to be seen. Why did I ever think I should try and make a living out of selling my photography is beyond me...why Andy...why?? 😉😂😭

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Really enjoyed reading this, informative and inspiring piece. Social media has become exhausting to me. It’s great to have this safe and beautifully put newsletter. Thank you Andy.

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Thanks so much, Adriana! I would love more photography folks to hear about the newsletter. Please spread the word. And thanks for reading!

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Keep going.

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