When I speak to my photographer friends about #Instagram and alternatives like the #fediverse, I usually have the same discussion as with someone in a toxic relationship:
yeah, the sex is good and the first 3 months were wonderful, but look at your nervous system now, my friend.
Aug 4, 2026, 7:30 AMI try not go get drawn in to discussions on things like this, I take photos and put on pixelfed, and send links, if people don't like it, Tough.
In some ways Fedi is our quiet little corner of the internet. We make it what we want, original, self generated content, rather than AI generated slop which seems to be taking over mainstream social networks.
@zleap Totally, and that's why I love it so much.
When you work full-time in photography you unfortunately can't avoid discussions like these. You have those who complain, but don't take action. You have those who praise everything with a blue tick.
Last year we were forced to share an Instagram Story and follow the sponsor accounts to get access an after-event party of a conference.
It's wild out there.
@sturmsucht what alternatives would you recommend? Pixelfed? I'm genuinely interested, as this topic is quite important to me.
@manpuku_yawn It honestly depends on what you are looking for. @pixelfed is nearest to IG and I'm desperately waiting for its UI update since 1,5 years now.
But I do know a bunch of photographers who generally feel overwhelmed with the wall of photos that you have on IG and Pixelfed and decided to publish their images on Mastodon, because they can then also share non-image stuff.
Worth to mention: @vernissage (and the @Pixelix app) and @frequency
I'm sitting somewhere in between. Really looking forward to the new Pixelfed UI, but also thinking about switching my main photo presence in the Fediverse to my Ghost blog on @chris which would be more Mastodon-stylish.
Don't know yet. All of these are good options with some advantages and disadvantages.
@sturmsucht @manpuku_yawn @chris
frequency is not aimed at photographers. It’s for private, personal sharing with family and friends.
Another non-insta option that is good for photography is grain.social + hypo. Grain does have the typical grid profile layout, but the hypo tools that can layer on top are very photographer focused https://atstore.fyi/products/hypo
@frequency hm, don't see a reason why photographers should not use frequency. we also have friends and families! 😄
but I guess you mean the images are not publicly available, right? couldn't test your app yet, because my OS is not supported.
grain+hypo are atproto so, not activitypub. that have to be kept in mind.
@sturmsucht @manpuku_yawn @chris yeah, images are not public is all I meant 😄 It just wouldn’t look like a portfolio profile. Otherwise, yes it can be used by anyone!
Yes grain is atproto, which is likely better if you migrate services so that all data/posts aren’t lost. ActivityPub still doesn’t do that very well.
Still nice to have something that is not public. I really miss the good old "Path" app, where you could share all kind of updates (text, images, video, location, audio, link, etc) just with a circle of family&friends.
@sturmsucht @frequency @chris Thanks, everyone, this was genuinely useful. The distinction I was missing is between a portfolio and a personal presence. I’m not trying to build a photography portfolio. I want a pseudonymous space for photos, cooking, books, and small daily observations, with room for text. So Mastodon feels like the better main home for me. It could even be the platform that finally lets me leave Instagram behind.