People wanted to see more of the models from my magazines, and they wanted to see them for free. That one word changed how I distribute everything I make.
More than ten years ago, I ran a website called ShesIncredible.com. It was filled with images of models who had appeared in the magazines I was producing: CRED MAG, XCLUSIVE, and XTRA.
The site got attention. People came to look, and then the messages started. They wanted to know where they could see more of the models. For free.
That word stopped me in my tracks.
The interest was real. The work was holding people’s attention, and they wanted more of it. But the images on that site had been made for publications. Their value was supposed to live in the magazines, in issues people chose to buy. By putting them online for anyone to view, I’d been taking that value out of the publication myself. And now the audience was asking me to do more of it.
Then I realized it didn’t stop with that website. I was posting the same models on social media too. Every time I did, I was making the same trade: giving away the thing that was supposed to make the magazine worth buying.
The work had value before the feed
By 2003, I was already working professionally in photography, video production, and graphic design. I was still starting out, and I didn’t own all the equipment I wanted, but I was doing professional work across all three.
Over more than twenty years, I’ve honed those skills, improved my judgment, and learned how to take an idea all the way to a finished piece. At different points, that work earned me a modest six figures a year.
Whether I was producing a television show, putting together a magazine, making a photograph, or designing a graphic, I was creating an asset. Each finished piece represented time, knowledge, creative decisions, and the ability to deliver something people wanted to see.
That history shapes how I look at social media.
What a post actually gives away
When a photograph or video goes up on a social platform, it gives someone a reason to stop scrolling. It gives them something to watch, react to, or share. All of that activity keeps people on the platform, where their attention supports its business.
The platform benefits from having compelling work for its users. The viewer enjoys it without paying. And the work that made that moment possible came from someone who invested years in learning how to produce it.
The feed also sets a rhythm: make something, post it, watch the reaction, and get ready for the next one. Work that took years of practice to execute gets consumed in seconds, and then another post takes its place.
A photograph can have a much longer life than that. It can become part of a publication, a print collection, or an archive. A video can become a program people come back to. A set of images can carry an entire editorial project. The same skills that make something work in a feed make it valuable somewhere else.
So I asked myself what I was getting in return for what I was contributing, and how much of that attention was helping me build something of my own.
What I was teaching people to expect
The messages on ShesIncredible.com kept coming back to me. From the audience’s side, asking for more for free probably felt completely normal. They were already used to finding so much at no charge.
From my side, it raised a harder question: what was I teaching people to expect from me?
If I kept presenting finished work as something to consume for free, I was helping establish that expectation myself. Nobody else was setting that price. I was. (I’ve made a similar point about magazine features: if the magazine isn’t worth buying, why is the cover worth posting?)
What I do now
A few years ago, I stopped posting my photography on social media. That includes my glamour work, my model work, and everything else I shoot.
I still use social media. I run ads, and I post graphics that point people to my sites. But I don’t post images I’ve shot.
My photographs do still show up in feeds, because the models I work with share them and tag me. That’s their right, and I’m glad when they do. It’s their image and their audience. But when people want to see more, there’s now somewhere for them to go that I built.
Where the work lives now
That decision is what led to the 360ism Media Network. Publications live at Publish.360ism.com, video at Media.360ism.com, and articles, education, and community here at Network. My personal photography is at IShootDopePics.com, where someone who likes an image can take the next step: book a shoot, take a class, or learn about working with me.
A single production can now become photographs for a magazine, footage for a video, and lessons for an article or class. Each one can introduce someone to the rest. The time that went into the original work keeps producing value instead of disappearing in a scroll.
I also decide what’s free. Some material is open to everyone because it introduces people to the work. Some belongs inside a paid experience. The difference is that the choice is deliberate now, and it’s mine.
Owning those destinations comes with costs. The sites need maintenance, the work still has to be produced, and the audience needs a reason to come back. I’m willing to carry that, because I’m building assets inside my own business instead of someone else’s.
If you make work for a living
You don’t have to leave social media to take something from this. But before you post your next finished piece, it’s worth asking a few questions:
- What is this post doing for me? Is it pointing people somewhere, or is the post itself the whole experience?
- Could this work have a longer life? Would it be worth more in a publication, a collection, a paid session, or a portfolio people seek out?
- What am I teaching my audience to expect? If everything is free in the feed, that’s the price you’ve set.
The people asking to see more for free weren’t wrong to ask. They were telling me the work was worth wanting. It took me a while to treat that as a reason to give it a home, instead of a reason to keep giving it away.
Related: I Want to Own the Whole Thing and Your Followers Have Aged With You.
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