The MOOD Podcast

Why Nobody Cares About Your Photography

• Matt Jacob

Share episode

Nobody cares about your photography. We don’t need more of 'any old' photographers. Yet survival as culture and society with soul is completely dependent on work that matters.

In this episode of Moments of Mood, I explore why indifference is the default in modern photography, what it actually means for someone to care about your work, why chasing attention is often the fastest way to lose meaning, and the deeper responsibility artists have in a world drowning in content.

Listen if you're interested in:

  • Being tired of chasing validation and wonder why no-none sees or takes notice of your work
  • Why nobody is waiting to care about your photography, but how you can create from a deeper place that invites care.
  • What “caring” really means in art and visual storytelling
  • Why meaning matters more than visibility
  • How photobooks create depth in a disposable image culture
  • The 5 conditions that make people genuinely care about photography
  • Why slow, intentional work outlasts viral success

____________________________

Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation!

Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Threads and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.

YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay

Learn with me
https://mattjacobphotography.com/voice-alchemy

My Newsletter
https://mattjacobphotography.com/newsletter

Website:
www.mattjacobphotography.com

Socials:
IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay

Matt Jacob :

Nobody cares about you or your photography. And let me tell you why, but more importantly, why this is actually a good thing. Welcome to another episode of Moments of Moods. And the other night I was sitting at home late reading Still Like an Artist by Austin Cleon. It's one of those books that looks deceptively simple, almost obvious a lot of the time. Do you realize this overlook wasn't the book the last time you read it? It was you. You just weren't maybe ready for what it was pointing at yet. And I'd already had this phrase circling around my head for a few days by this point because it keeps coming up again and again in conversations with photographers that I mentor, and if I'm being honest, it's come up plenty of times before in conversations with myself over the years, too. That quiet, uncomfortable question that kind of sits underneath everything else. Why are people not seeing my work? Why doesn't anyone care? You know, why does this feel so well lonely sometimes? Why bother even if it just is invisible to everyone? At some point, I put the book down and of course habitually picked up my phone without even thinking, checking messages, etc., and then did what we all do. I went on to Instagram and just started scrolling, looking at photos, image after image passed by, some of them genuinely good, of course, some carefully made, a lot of them very beautiful, and then they were gone. Not rejected, not criticized per se, not even hated, just gone, lost in the ether, right? And that's when the sentence finally settled properly. Nobody cares about your photography. Nobody cares even about you. In this moment, that is. And that last bit matters. This isn't an insult, of course. It's meant to be encouragement. And it's not even always strictly true. I'm exaggerating slightly to make a point. Of course, people can care, and sometimes they do, but most of the time they don't. And if you're honest with yourself, neither do you, right? When was the last time that you spent an entire day taking real action around someone, someone else's work? Not necessarily liking it, not commenting something polite, actual action, buying the book, sitting with it at work, returning to it weeks later, letting it change you in some small way. Because action is the operative word here. We confuse platitudes with care all of the time, but those are not the same thing. So when I say nobody cares, I'm not issuing a judgment per se. I'm describing the default conditions we're all working inside, especially now. And I'm deliberately not spiraling off into a wider commentary about maybe disillusionment, social media, social fragmentation, broken systems, and the general weirdness of modern day life. There are far smarter people than me doing that already. I'm interested in something more practical and more personal. But before we go any further, we need to be clear about what caring actually means in the context of photography, because a lot of confusion actually starts here. Most photographs are just glanced at, right? Very few are received, most are just seen, very few are actually held. Care is not visibility, it's not validation, it's not popularity, it's not numbers. Care is what happens when an image, or more often a body of work, creates a durable bond between the intention of the person who made it and the inner world of the person who encounters it. It's when a photograph doesn't just pass through someone, but actually stays with them, right? Returns later, alters something maybe even slightly. And that level of care is rare, which is exactly why it matters. Now, here's the context most photographers forget to account for. Everyone is busy inside their own head. Not busy in a productive sense often, but occupied, right? People are carrying worries they don't talk about, unfinished conversations, fears about money, health, relationships, identity, purpose, all of that stuff, right? No one really has their life figured out, no matter how put together they might appear to you on the outside, especially online. And on top of that, we live more than ever inside our filter bubbles and echo chambers. And we're surrounded by content that reflects our own anxieties back at us. Attention is fragmented, emotional bandwidth is highly limited. So when your photograph appears, if it gets in front of people, it doesn't arrive in a quiet receptive space. It lands in the middle of someone else's internal noise and distractions. That doesn't mean people don't care. They absolutely most likely do. They just aren't waiting to care about your work. Nobody is sitting there poised, hoping that the next image they see will finally move them. Right? There may be some very, very few amount of people that are doing that. Because indifference isn't personal, it's structural, and it's the default. But from the other side, from where you're standing as the photographer, that indifference, of course, feels like rejection. It feels like a verdict, like proof that your work isn't good enough or deep enough or worth all of the effort, right? I hear this constantly from budding photographers. Not necessarily technical questions anymore, thank goodness, but more existential ones. Will people like this? How do I find my audience so that I can get eyes on my work? How do I find any eyes to get on my work? Even the language gives the tension away, right? Finding an audience sounds like hunting, chasing, convincing people. But attention doesn't really work like that, at least valued attention. The world isn't short on images, it's oversupplied. We're producing more photographs than we know how to digest. And in that environment, more work isn't the answer. Louder work isn't the answer, but meaning is. For me, caring about someone's photography means that their work becomes part of my inner world rather than just part of my visual diet. It means that a photograph or more often a body of work lingers with me and meditates upon me. I think about it while I'm washing dishes, journaling, or working out. It returns to me on a walk. A sequence from a photo book appears in my mind when I'm in a completely different context. But so what? Well, it might make me feel less alone or more uncomfortable, or newly curious about a place or a person I had never considered before. What a privilege to have your mind opened like that, right? So for me, caring shows up in the way I change my behavior. I seek that photographer out again, I buy their book, I go to their exhibition, I recommend them to a friend, I keep their work on my shelf, I invite them even to talk with me on or off the podcast. It makes me think differently. Shows up as a memory and in small acts of loyalty, maybe. And if you look at the work that has really stayed in the culture, not just in photography, but in all art forms, in music, literature, cinema, it is not the work that shouted the loudest in the moment. It is the work that accumulated meaning over time. It carried something forward. It helped people feel or name or understand something about being human that they did not have language for before. And that can make us feel comforted. That phrase carrying meaning forward is important here because meaning in this context is not some abstract intellectual concept. It is the way images help us hold on to what matters. A photograph from a war is not just pixels, it is a piece of evidence that says this happened. A tender portrait is not just a study in light or composition. It's a way of saying this person existed and was loved like this in this moment. A long-term project in a small community, maybe, is not just aesthetics. It is an archive, a memory, a way of saying this way of life was here. And when that work is gathered into something, I don't know, like a photo book, something else begins to happen. Images stop standing alone and start behaving like sentences. The sequence suggests a narrative, maybe, rather than explains it, puts it on a screen. Gaps and silences matter as much as the pictures. Repetition becomes emphasis, and silence becomes meaning. And a book like a photo book allows an artist to quietly thread their internal struggles, their questions, their fears, and their way of seeing the world through the work without having to announce it out loud. In that sense, a photo book is not just a container for photographs, right? It's a way of expressing how an artist understands a place, a culture, a moment in time, or even themselves, often themselves. It's where personal experience and outward observation are allowed to sit side by side long enough for the viewer to feel the tension between them. And that is meaning carried forward. Meaning is important for society because without it, everything just becomes interchangeable, futile. If nothing carries meaning, everything becomes entertainment. People stop feeling deeply, they start acting on the surface, and they stop recognizing themselves and others. They stop caring about anything beyond their own immediate circle. That is when we become very easy to manipulate and very easy to divide. Feeling is not a sentimental extra, it's one of the ways we stay human. If you want to get mystical about it, you could say feeling is the mechanism by which life becomes conscious of itself. But we'll leave the mysticism for another day. So photography that people care about is photography that participates in that process, right? It helps someone see something they already feel but have not been able to articulate. It reveals something they did not know they cared about until they saw it, right? It gives shape to a part of reality that otherwise would have remained likely invisible. There is a reason that when you sit with a good photo book, it often moves you more than a thousand images on a screen. You must have felt that, right? Social media is built for speed and reaction. A book is built for pace and reflection. On a screen, images live and die in isolation, but in a book, they start to speak to each other. The gaps between them start to matter. Sequencing, pairing, repetition, atmosphere, all of these create a structure where meaning can actually emanate from. When I work on my own projects and think about them as potential series, diptycs, or even books, something shifts. I no longer ask, how many views will this get? Will this get likes? But I ask, what does this belong next to? What does this image do to the one that comes after it? What is the feeling that survives the whole sequence? And that is where care starts to be designed into the work, not in a manipulative way, but in a way that respects the viewer's time and attention as well as the photographers. So the lesson before we get to anything that looks like steps is this people do not care about your photography by default because their attention is already overcommitted. They will only care when your work carries enough meaning over enough time and that it earns a place in their inner life. And that is not about hacks, it is about how you practice and doing the good work. So, how do you actually move from nobody cares to some people genuinely care? You know, what are the levers you can influence? And I want to make this very explicit because this is where a lot of vague talk about just be authentic becomes futile and just useless. In my experience and in my own work, in watching the photographers I admire and in working with students and mentees, there are what I think five conditions that tend to be present when people genuinely start to care about someone's photography. You can think of them as maybe five considerations or five tests you can apply to your own practice. They're not magic, of course. They need you to work at it, but they are honest. First, the work has to stop begging for attention. Easier said than done, right? Most photography online is visually shouting. It's trying to be clever or impressive or shocking because somewhere underneath there is a quiet desperation. Oh, please look at me, please validate me, please prove that I exist. It may sound harsh, but I think it's true. People can feel that even when they cannot articulate it. Work that people care about usually carries a different energy. It feels self-possessed. It would exist whether or not anyone applauded it or even saw it. It does not try to seduce, it invites. And that does not mean you hide your work or you pretend to not want an audience, of course. We all want that. It means that when you make decisions, what to shoot, what to include, what to show, how to present it, you are led by the integrity of the project, not by the imagined future applause. Second, care grows through accumulation, not single images. One photograph can get attention. A body of work earns care. When someone looks at your images and starts to see recurring themes, recurring places, recurring emotional tones, their trust begins to grow. They realize this is not just a one-off performance, right? It is a relationship you have with the world. And that is why thinking in projects and series and eventually books, maybe, is so powerful. It naturally forces you to consider sequence, context, repetition, and development over time. If all you ever present is isolated hits, you might get reactions, you might get a viral reel or a viral post, but you will struggle to build any deep attachment. Third, the work has to feel necessary for you, not optional. What do I mean by this? Well, the photographers who books you keep on your shelf and return to are rarely the ones who just thought this might do well online. They are the ones who could not not make that work. The project was an extension of a question they could not let go of, or a place they were drawn back to repeatedly, or a part of themselves they needed to actually understand. That sense of necessity comes through. Viewers might not know exactly why, but they feel that this person has skin in the game, right? The work has actually cost them something. They sacrifice something. It's not just decoration. So if your images feel interchangeable, you could just as easily have gone somewhere else, photographed something else, said something else. It is hard for people to attach real care to them. Fourth, your work needs coherence so that you become findable. This is where Austin Cleon's uh books show your work and Steve Martin's quote, be so good, they can't ignore you. This is where they collide. People often interpret show your work as post-everything. That's not the point. The point is to let people see the shape of your practice, the ongoing inquiry, the through lines. When someone scrolls through your feed or looks at your portfolio or opens your book or sees your website, do they feel like they are entering a recognizable world or are they confronted with a different style, subject, mood, and intention every 10 seconds? Coherence does not mean repetition of the same image. It means a consistent inner logic. So being findable is not about gaming and algorithm, it is about creating a body of work that when someone stumbles across one piece of it, it makes them want to see the rest. And when they do, it all feels like it belongs together. And lastly, you must make peace with time and let go of the fantasy of quick validation. This is the one nobody likes, right? In almost every medship I've had, at some point I end up saying some version of, there is no way around the long road. Be so good they can't ignore you is not the answer people want, because it does not come with a timeline or a guarantee, and it other than it's a lot of work. It also does not mean martyr yourself to suffering. It means you find a way to enjoy the years of obscurity, the years where nobody seems to care because you know that is where your craft is being built and you can experiment. If you are constantly looking over your shoulder, asking, is it working yet? Is it working yet? You will either compromise the work to chase quick reactions, or you will burn out before it matures. Ironically, when you genuinely stop needing everyone to care, is when you are able to make meaning the main reward. And that is often when the right people begin to show up. If you put these five together, you have the outline of how to make people care about your photography. But notice what is missing. There is nothing here about posting three times a day or chasing trends or watching your analytics like a stock market. That's unhealthy. This is slower advice. It's harder and it's also much kinder. Practically, what does this look like though in your week? Well, it means committing to a project long enough for it to become a series, not just a folder of files. It means printing your work, making small zines, putting sequences on your wall and playing with them, maybe working towards a photo book of your own, even if only 50 people ever hold it. It means reading books like Steel, like an artist, and his second one, show your work, not as quick inspiration, but as reminders that the game is longer and deeper than likes. It means maybe joining a book club, my book club, or a small community where the pace of looking is slower, where you actually discuss what images do to you, not just how they were shot. It means if you want structured help working on your portfolio, presence and positioning with someone who will keep asking, why? Why this and why here? Instead of, well, how do we make this go viral? You do not have to do all of that at once, of course. You can pick one condition and work on it for a season. But at least now the problem is named in a way that you can actually act on. So, where does this leave you? Sitting there with your camera, your hard drives, your half finished projects, and that ache that says, I want this to matter to someone and I want someone to see it and I want someone to like it. First, I think it helps to genuinely accept that nobody is supposed to care about your photography at the beginning. It's not on anyone to do that, right? Everyone is busy in their own head with their own lives, managing their own storms. The world is full of good images these days. Indifference is not a verdict on your worth. It is simply a default position from where we all start. Second, if caring is really about meaning, then your job shifts. Instead of desperately trying to find an audience, your job becomes to build work that is worth caring about for a small number of people and to make yourself findable to those people over time. That might mean your first audience is 10 people who read your newsletter, maybe, or 15 people in a book club, or a handful of mentees whose work you pour into. That is still an audience. That still counts. Third, there is a quiet paradox at the heart of all of this. When you can tap into the satisfaction of making meaningful work, whether or not it is immediately validated, the need for external proof softens. You focus on the art, the craft, the storytelling, the sequencing, the print, the book, the project. And strangely, once you are no longer chasing approval or a certain gold with it, in every frame your work often becomes stronger, clearer, more liberated, and more alive. That is exactly the kind of work the right audience is drawn to. I've seen this with my own mentees and myself back in the day. The moment they stop asking, how do I get people to like this and start asking, what am I really trying to say here? And how can I say it more honestly, their images shift and their projects deepen. They become easier to position, easier to talk about, easier to share, because there is finally a spine inside of them, metaphorical spine. The portfolio becomes coherent. Their presence feels grounded, their positioning stops sounding like just marketing faff and starts sounding like truth. If you want somewhere to practice this slower, deeper way of working, well, that's why I create I care about things like my book club. And it's why I built my mentorship around portfolio, presence, and positioning rather than just technical tricks and hacks. Those spaces are not about chasing numbers. They are about learning to build work that can carry meaning forward in a world that desperately needs it. Nobody cares about your photography, at least not yet. And that is not a reason to give up. It's the opposite. It's an invitation. It means you are free to build something honest, something coherent, something necessary. So that when the right people do, and they will, when they do eventually stumble across your images, there is actually something for them to care about. Anyway, just some of my own ramblings and thoughts on something that ironically and most probably no one cares about. So that's enough from me. Merry Christmas. See you in the next one, and of course, happy shooting.

Head Shot

Matt Jacob

Host