Stop Letting Negative Opinions Hold You Back

“People only see what they are prepared to see.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the world of social media, there is no shortage of opinions. Everyone has something to say, and we are all required to hear it. The internet is always trying to elicit our opinion from us about different things. Amazon always wants us to share our opinions with us. Yelp wants a restaurant review. Google wants us to share about a store experience. The news media is always having polls designed to get our opinion about what is going on in the world. We are pushed to constantly share about our experiences. It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad. We as photographers post our work on social media and on our websites in order to hear feedback about the work we do. Most people when they like a set of posts either like, comment or both. If they don’t like it, most people typically just ignore the post. However, you have those random times where someone posts a negative response either about the photo you post, or about what you wrote about. I saw this a lot when there was pandemic restrictions, and I was sharing about my experiences as a teacher. I have a few tell me I was killing the children by requiring them to wear a mask, and at the end of the day I was just doing my job as instructed by my local board of education. I had one commenter once tell me that I should stop doing post work on the photos that I take because it wasn’t “true photography.” I was told I need to buy a better camera in order to take better pictures. I wished I could have afforded a better camera at the time. However, being a teacher, my income is limited. Buying some thousand dollar camera is out of my families budget. I did learn some life lessons when it comes to dealing with negativity online.

• Respond, but not with the intent to debate. Share how you feel online. You are really doing this for yourself. Very rarely are opinions changed in the comments section of the internet, but sharing your feelings with help keep you grounded.
• Delete the comments if the person continues to add negativity to your feed. Most often people do not respond when we share our views. Sometimes they continue their negative rant. At that point we see that they have no intentions of hearing what you have to say and only care about what they have to say.
• Block the individual if they continue to harass you. I have done this less than ten times in the last 5 years. Rarely do I see the need to block someone, but I have when needed to. Do not let someone to continue to harass you online. What you share is too valuable to world to be block by someone’s ignorance.
• Check you social media settings. You can make your profile private or set it up to where you can block specific types of comments. If you would like help with this, let me know in the comments or sending me a direct message on Instagram. Click here for my profile.

What I love about these photos I have posted is that they show different perspectives of one of my favorite parks to visit in Charlotte, Freedom Park. This is one of my favorite spots to ride my bike too. The wind was strong that day. The water was too choppy for reflection shots, but it was a clear day, so the lighting outside was perfect.

I hope this post helps. If you would like support for your social media and blog sites please let me know in the comments or reach out to me on Instagram Direct Messenger.