Last Updated on 10/25/2024 by Chris Gampat
“(We started) Blogs to enable a new form of storytelling on VSCO, whether it’s a look behind-the-scenes or crafting compelling narratives to accompany photo series,” says one of our VSCO reps in an email to us, knowing fully well that I’ve used the journal feature years ago. “…this is a new take on a similar concept. Blogs will have new UI, additional functionality and be available to Pro members only.” Today, the company is announcing their VSCO blogs feature, and it feels like the early 2000s all over again.
According to one of the company’s latests posts, blogs let the user create text and add photos or video. They’re pushing it as a way to do something far more intensive for ptomoting your work. Photographers are encouraged to publish behind the scenes, creative processes, etc.
To get the VSCO Blogs feature, you need to be a Pro member and pay for the membership. Truly, after doing it for two years, I think that it’s worth it for many of the features there. VSCO is a far less toxic version of Instagram in the way that’s similar to enjoying cups of tea every day without sugar.
To make a blog, you need to work on them from your desktop. That feature alone is one that I absolutely adore. Photographers get really serious when they sit down to a computer and it puts your into a mindset that’s much different from what you do on a phone. Blogs and photography truly deserve to be seen and interacted with on a bigger screen. We shouldn’t treat them as content — which is designed to be quickly consumed trash to please an algorithm.
To show you a bit more about what blogs can do, VSCO teamed up with a few photographers:
- A photo essay from Simrah Farrukh about her return to her hometown of Karachi, Pakistan after nine years away
- Abdullahi Santuraki will take us behind-the-scenes of his shoots as a photographer and drone pilot in Nigeria
- Documenting a new photo project of VSCO Infrared edits for 34 weeks, Brian White will dive into his creative process as a California street photographer and share VSCO recipes for others to try
If you’re still wondering about why you’d be on VSCO, think of it as a place for creatives. Here in NYC, Brooklyn was considered a great place for creative people. Then the finance bros came and ruined it. Slowly, Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, and Bushwick disappeared to people with way too much money. VSCO, however, seems intent on protecting its identity. Considering that all the execs are former leaders over at Adobe, I think we can really trust what they’re doing.
I plan on having a lot of fun with the VSCO blogs feature. Admittedly, I write already a lot for the Phoblographer. And on my own website, I don’t use the blog feature often. But the new VSCO blogs could be different for me. Often I’m so swamped with one shoot vs another and most of my personal creative writing goes into making poetry. Perhaps there might be a way that I could combine the two; but as a photographer, I’d have to explore a way where it won’t feel forced.
This, in and of itself, is a struggle for all of us.