5 posts tagged “flickr”
Am I the only one who is tired of hearing all the supposedly old skool, Flickr users moaning about having to associate their account with a Yahoo ID and with the new limit on contacts to 3000 this week?
The account issue is, for me a non-issue. I had an old account id. As soon as yahoo allowed you to associate a yahoo id with a flickr account, before I was even made aware that there was some prestiege to an old style id, I merged them. One less account id and password to remember as far as I was concerned.
What did you expect when Yahoo bought Flickr? Nothing stays the same, especially in the internet environment. If you want to stay, then get a Yahoo Id; if you're leaving could you do it a bit more quietly please? They told us months ago that this was happening - you've had plenty of time to move to Zoomer already.
As for the limit of 3000 contacts, I say reduce it further to 500 or less. Who can keep track of more than 3000 contacts? I can't keep up with what my 150 contacts are doing. If your an uber-popular, A-list flickerite you don't have to reciprocate every newbie who adds you as a contact, unless you're trying to guarantee that every picture you post gets a million views and automatically goes to the top of Flickr Explorer. If someone adds me as a Flickr contact I don't blindly reciprocate; I actually go and view a few pages of their stream and see if they are doing anything interesting. If I go to their profile and they already have a thousand contacts I figure they don't really need me as a contact but that they're trying to game the system so I don't reciprocate even if their work is outstanding (I'm English - we hate the favorite but love the underdog). If a contact hasn't posted anything for a couple of months, unless they're my brother, I have no problem with removing them from my contacts. How can you practically manage 3000 contacts?
I don't buy the reciprocal contact as ticket to private photo stream either. Flickr is not a private club and that's the point. Either make the pictures public, just show them to your real (not virtual) family and friends, or set up a porn site.
Flickr is an internet citizen's privilege, not a right. If you don't like their rules then build an alternative.
I've talked about my little project and the strange fixation I have with taking pictures of cars parked on the street here before so I won't go back over my motivations again, especially as they still are as confused as before. I did want to mention a little milestone I hit yesterday when I uploaded my 101st picture into the set (I try to use flickr sets as light boxes to work out a collection of pictures).
I had hoped to clear the century by New Years but real life got in the way. I am a little confused about the time line for this project; some pictures in the set date back to September of 2004 but I think I started to notice the theme and assemble the set on Flickr less than a year ago. If I can remain motivated and inspired enough, I will be disappointed if I haven't doubled the number in this set by the end of this year. I still don't know what I want to do with, or make of, them but I do enjoy their cumulative effect; each photograph individually is not that dramatic but when you see 101 with all their similarities and differences I think that the viewing experience is very different.
For the record, here is an approximate breakdown:
- Pickups: 19 (5 of which are red, most of which are rusty) - I don't even like pickups!
- RVs: 4
- VW bugs: 6
- Vans: 11 (I dislike vans more than pickups)
- Specific Vehicles Included more than once: 2 (I will get this down to 0 when I can decide which shot I like the most for each).
- Pictures of my own car: 1 (100 points if you know which one it is)
- Number of pictures which aren't side on with the car facing left: 8
As before, this project is not something to be taken very seriously or to be read into - it's just photographic doodling. Like doodling, it is fun and distracting, well, for the photographer least ways.
I think it is generally accepted that photography is a pretty solitary activity. It's not that photographers don't have community; the interweb has put paid to that, hooking all photographers of all standards, tastes and philosophies from all over the world. Anyone can now find their peers and an audience, of some size, on the web. We are no longer alone but the actual photographic activity seems to be a solitary one.
I was reminded of this this weekend when my wife and I went on a photo stroll with fellow flickrites at a local decommissioned Navy base. We met in the parking lot at the allotted time and all uncomfortably introduced ourselves and weighed each other up. It was a good sized group - twenty or so - but once we got passed those awkward introductions and got down to the business in hand, exploring and taking photos, it was conducted in relative silence. We walked around together in that the last person in the group could usually see the front person in the group but in general each person, even those who arrived together, went about their business without consulting anyone else. Occasionally, someone would point out something cool they'd seen or people would chimp over each other's shoulders to see how someone else was getting on. There was a little photography small talk; equipment consultations and comments on how beautiful the weather was - but most of the time the sound of shutters firing was louder than the sound of conversation.
With twenty relative strangers I'm sure there was an element of competition and suspicion involved. We all knew that we'd have to post our images over the next couple of days on flickr and there was a little performance anxiety as we each wondered how we would measure up. Is my photography to obvious? Is it technically competent? Can I produce something good and different from the other 19? For me, the most interesting part of these activities is comparing notes afterwards. Some subjects are obvious as they were on Saturday; a military jet on a pole at the gate, two small boats stacked on a trailer, a rusty nissan hut. What is interesting is seeing all the different interpretations and then comparing them to your own, not to see whose is 'best' but to see the different points of view and approaches and to consider if you still like your own afterwards.
But even with that competition removed and that "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" posturing removed, I don't think the atmosphere would have been any more gregarious. I've gone out shooting many times with real world friends or my wife. We always talk a bit, especially as I am trying to teach my wife a little at the moment, but there comes a time when you just leave each other to it and go your own way. I've started out walking from the same spot with a friend and we've ended up calling each other a mile apart to meet back up. We talk far more in the coffee shop afterwards or even comparing prints a week later than we ever do on location.
Going to a place to explore, see what photographic opportunities present themselves, and bring back pictures is sort of like day dreaming or mulling over your thoughts. Something visually interesting pulls you one way until the photographic potential of something else pulls you in another direction. Everyone has their own pace and their own tolerance for feeling like they have spent a specific subject. Trying to stay joined at the hip with another photographer is like trying to run with someone much faster or slower than yourself; exhausting.
Don't get me wrong; I do enjoy going
out to shoot with others. It gives you more purpose and makes it feel
much more of an event. I enjoy comparing pictures afterwards and
photographic chit-chat over coffee. What I am saying is, when that
viewfinder goes to your eye you have to be inside yourself with no
other distractions. The blinkers are the edge of the frame. Only you
can sort out the visual puzzle and assemble it into something you can
be proud of. For me, one of the beauties of photography is that two
photographers can stand in the same spot and point their cameras at the
same thing and, if they dig down, they will each bring home something
different. But, if they're standing side by side taking pictures, you can almost bet it will be in silence.
I've run with the same core group of people at work for more than a decade now. At least every Tuesday and Thursday we meet at the gym at work to do a few miles. During our time we've noticed a cycle; around Thanksgiving the gym starts to get quiet. By the week after Christmas the place is positively dead but come the first work day of January the line for the showers gets ridiculous; everyone on campus suddenly has a New Year's resolution to get fit and/or lose weight. For a few weeks the changing rooms will be packed but by mid-February everything will be back to normal.
Let's face it, New Year's resolutions rarely work but I do see something heroically optimistic in their failure; the belief that we can change ourselves for the better through sheer will-power. With this in mind I am embarking on a Picture a Day project for the New Year. I've noticed the Flickr and photoblogs are littered with these PAD projects at the moment, much like an overstuffed gym, as we enthusiast photographers resolve to learn more, stretch ourselves and to use our toys more frequently. I tried this back in October for a month on my photoblog and it is harder than it looks. This time I am allowing myself a little more latitude by hosting the project on Flickr. This allows me to keep my photoblog as it currently runs; if I want to post old pictures I do, and if I want to post different shots from the same outing over several days I can. The Flickr set will be more strict in that I will try to post a picture everyday from the previous 24 hours.
I wonder if I can make it past mid-February and the death of the majority of New Year's resolutions. Running has taught me that you have to make something an unconditional habit if you hope to succeed. If I don't turn up to the Thuesday group you can bet one of them will be calling me by mid-afternoon to either make sure I'm not injured or to call me a lazy bastard. Hopefully my conscience will play that roll in my photography although my wife is also a good task master for these kind of projects. Carrying a camera every day is already a habit - now I just have to make sure that I make time to use it.
What about you? Anyone else made any Photography related resolutions?
I get that it has something to do with Flickr's Explore and interestingness but why did this particular shot get hit while those around it get their normal number of visits and how did it get picked up in the first place? The picture was taken two days ago when I took my wife to the Golden Gate Cemetery in Colma (how romantic eh?) to help her get her feet wet with her new camera. This Cemetery is my photographic stomping ground. When the light is right it is hard to take a bad shot there. The repetition with slight variations lends itself to both wide forced perspective-like shots and tight telephoto crops equally. It was my wife's first visit so we spent a couple of hours there while I whittered on about composition, quality of light and exposure.
As I said, I have taken very similar shots to this before. I have a very architectural, graphic (some would argue boringly mathematical) eye. My wife sees faces in pieces of wood and rabbits in the clouds - I see hard patterns and symmetry everywhere. As these compositions are obvious to me I allow myself to take them so that I can move past them and then stretch myself. In this case I much preferred this shot I made of the graves with a plane and the moon in a vivid blue sky above them - it was typical of my style and it said something less obvious to me about life going on and the mystery of death.
But what do I know? The shot I like has been seen 12 times - the more obvious one, 87.
