What am I supposed to do with this? This is a screenshot of my stats page on unsplash.com, a photography platform where photographers can share images without licenses for people to make cool stuff.
There’s a ton of really nice photography on that website - for the most part these images have been created by talented photographers with gear that they’ve paid good money for, and probably make a living with. Anyway, as a photographer, if you upload your work to this site, you are agreeing to let anyone, anywhere use it without any kind of licensing or payment. In fact, although it is encouraged, using these images doesn’t require a photo credit.
My images, as shown in this screenshot, have been viewed over 15 million times, and downloaded over a hundred thousand times; meaning used in an app, or posted on Instagram or Twitter, or something of that nature. I do get tagged on social media every now and then when people use my images, but it’s fairly infrequent, considering the metrics on these images.
So my question, again, is what am I supposed to do with this? I guess it’s reaffirming about my photographic abilities, that people are that interested in my work - actually, scratch that - it really does feel good that something I made has been viewed and appreciated to that level. But I haven’t gained any tangible value from all these many views and downloads. Nobody’s reached out to hire me for any photography gigs, or to purchase or license any of my other photographs. Maybe it’s my own fault, and I’m not leveraging all this traffic properly.
It kind of makes me think of the larger question of views and likes on social media in general, and what the point of them is. There was a South Park episode years ago that I think of every time I see these stats go up.
Anyway, the point of this post isn’t to cry about not getting rich from my images being used so many times, or even to slam Unsplash (I’ll leave that to Zack Arias). I voluntarily uploaded my photography there, knowing what their usage rules were. I guess I just need to figure out how I want to grow as a photographer, and learn to use this as a tool (one of many) to get there.