Hello dear reader!
Welcome to another issue of this newsletter. This week I want to talk about tools for creative work—and building my own. To break up the text, I’ll include some photos I took last week.
In this issue:
- Tools for photographers
- Scratching my own itch, and building me a tool
- Photos
- Discount code.
As a creative person, tools are simply pieces of technology that enable me to create. In my case, the main tool is the camera I have at hand. It allows me to capture moments, and to do that well I need to be familiar with its settings, menus, and quirks. The more we use a tool, the more it becomes second nature. Eventually, muscle memory takes over and handles all the buttons and knobs.
But the camera is just one of many. As a photographer, I don’t only take photos—I edit them, store them, and share them online. And when it comes to sharing, the newsletter is my favorite place. It’s a direct connection with all of you, not the curated and mediated algorithmic connection you get elsewhere.
Still, I recognize the value of posting to Instagram, Pixelfed, and other communities. It’s a way to keep engaging with fellow photographers. But managing my online presence and posting across platforms feels like a challenge in itself, so I decided to make my life easier.
It might sound like a small problem, but every time I post a photo, I check a list on my phone with hashtags, keywords, and accounts to tag. Playing the algorithm-optimization game. All the copying, pasting, and switching between apps was adding up—so I built my own tool.
Postflow.photo is a web app that helps me with a few things: it stores my social media accounts, lets me save hashtag groups, and allows me to schedule and cross-post across different platforms. I built it for myself, but I imagine other photographers could benefit from it too.
It’s a tool for photographers, built by a photographer. I’m not trying to make a social media analytics tool or a marketing dashboard. I just want to make it easier for photographers to share their work.
What do you think? The application is live now with a few core capabilities, and I plan to keep improving it. If you’d like to try it out, visit postflow.photo and sign up. Use NEWSLETTER50 to get 50% off for a year. I’d love to hear your feedback—let me know what you think, and if you end up using it.
I think I’ll keep building small tools like this to improve my workflow. I’m sure I’m not the only one hacking things together to make work easier. Do you have a story? I’d love to hear it.
I have to say that being able to build my own tools gives me extra flexibility—and plenty of distractions. As a technical guy, I tend to slip into “building mode” a bit too easily, even when I shouldn’t over-engineer things. But hey, it’s fun, and it’s part hobby anyway.
That’s it for today! If you enjoyed this issue, share it with a friend! Know someone struggling posting along social media? Send it their way, it might be useful for them.
Luis