Perfessor,
I recommend Flickr for anybody who cares how their photographs are presented. They do a great job with that. Here are my reasons:
- It's free (up to 1000 photos, then pretty darn cheap after that).
- It's accessible by anyone. Not true about viewers having to be Flickr members. Try it out yourself... just go to
Find your inspiration. | Flickr and search by name on the top. You can just give people your Flickr name (for ease, you can make it your real name, as in kath.sheridan)
- You can have your "site" up in minutes, unlike a website, which I have, but that takes a lot to get there. Uploading to Flickr is easy as pie.
- You can make photos public or private, or whole albums public or private. If you want, you can direct folks to your page and tell them what Album their pics are in.
- You decide if your photos are downloadable or not. I sell mine through my website, so they are not.
- Instagram is lousy. As others have said above, it's made for phones and quick looks and lots of "following". The reason you don't see a lot of the members here use it is likely due to both demographics and the fact that it sucks for real photography. I have an account but so rarely post because... there really is no point unless you want to create a "story" every day and have lots of people like you. Some of us don't need that kind of adoration.
Good luck with whatever system you choose. By the way, you can always put a note on your Flickr descriptions that instructs people on how to buy prints from you.