I normally don’t spend much time on photo sharing sites, but I recently started delving more into the very popular and fast growing 500px.com
The site was launched in 2009, but already has over 2.5 million registered members. And the reason I think it is worth getting to know it better (if you don’t already know much about it) is that photographers from around the world are showcasing some of the most beautiful photography there is, and from every genre imaginable.
Photo sharing sites for enthusiast photographers though are certainly not something new to the internet. Big online photo communities like Flickr, PBase, Photo.net, and others have been around for far longer than 500px. But the quality of the work I have seen on 500px is greatly unmatched by the other sites.
Why I think becoming part of a community like this is so important to us is because, as photographers, we need to keep ourselves abreast of the latest trends in photography in terms of what people are photographing, how they are processing their images, and what types of pictures are admired and sought after by others. The top contributors to this site have some of the best post processing skills I have seen and one can gather some fantastic ideas and inspiration just from looking at some of the work of other photographers on 500px.
The site’s navigation is superb and you can easily look at the most popular work on the site at any moment by going to the 500px Popular section which sorts pictures by the top member votes and ratings. You can also look through the Popular image section by category by selecting categories within the Popular section from the drop down menu that appears. If you want to use a mobile device to access the site, they have beautifully designed 500px apps available for free for both iOS and Android based smartphones and tablets.
Through the site you can also gain great exposure to your own photography, sell prints of your pictures, as well as license usage rights to your work if you like. I really am pleased about the fact that there are no file size upload limits on the site. So you can upload your pictures to your portfolio in a nice, large viewing format in order to make them more outstanding to viewers.
The amount of member views I have seen on some of my pictures within just 24 hours of putting them up is astounding and a great way to get a large number of people to view your work very quickly.
Membership is free and, for the first 14 days of your membership, you can upload as many pictures to your portfolio as you like. After 14 days you are then limited to 20 picture uploads per week, but you can continue to upload as many pictures as you want per day for a reasonable annual membership fee.
I think the 500px community has the potential to grow into something really big and, even if you are not interested in uploading photos yourself, you can still sign up for a free membership account just so you can look at pictures, create a favorites collection to keep track of work on the site that you like, and comment on other people’s work if you wish.
I encourage all photographers who want to keep their finger on the pulse in photography to become part of this site. The fact that all pictures on the site are tagged with keywords allows you the ability to simply search and look through the top pictures on the site in whatever genre you are interested in.
So far, I have created only a small presence for myself on 500px, but if you would like to see what I have setup on there you can go here: www.500px.com/MarcSchultz
See you there…