Flickr December 31, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet , trackback
During the holidays I found some time to play in Flickr and learned a bit more about it. Up until now, I had only really used it as a place to upload a few photos and have them displayed at the bottom of the side bar in this blog. The social aspect of this much acclaimed web service hadn’t grabbed me, I couldn’t really see the point, and I’m still not certain that ultimately, it’s not just an entertaining distraction, but that’s OK too.
This is what I’ve learned so far:
* Common tags and RSS provide one mechanism ( similar to deli.cio.us) by which people who share an interest in a topic, style, location or whatever can keep in touch with the latest relevant uploads, but if you really want to see the social side of Flickr you need to join groups - active groups.
* Active groups have a discussion page and a group pool of photos, both of which can be subscribed to with RSS. By submitting one of your uploaded photos to a group, more people are likely to view it, add a comment or bookmark.
I probably wouldn’t have found a reason to blog the image below, but on Flikr I added it to “parallax view” and “colour fields - green” groups
* Some groups have informative discussions, with disclosure of technique and other useful stuff. I found an odd group called “cutouts” where the theme is to highlight a coloured subject against a black and white background. Discussion revealed that people have found different ways of achieving this effect, so I decided to have a go. Looking back through my archive I found a suitable picture, and the result entitled “potato” I feel is an improvement on the original.
* Contacts, friends and favourites tend to be reciprocal, so go ahead and add some.
* There’s a Flash based synchronous chat facility - called FlickrLive ( accessible from the sitemap) , but very few people have started using it yet.
The free account has an upload limit of 10 Mb a month and this will go a lot further if you resize photos from hi-res to typical web size first. There’s also a limit of 100 photos total displayed in the free account, so if you get used to using flickr a lot, you could end up needing to shell out $41.77 for an annual pro account, which at current exchange rates is what - under £2 a month?
What else?
I started a group called “scanned objects”
Images created by placing objects on a flatbed scanner. No camera is needed for this group, and the depth of field can be several centimetres depending on scanner. Great magnification is also possible. The purpose of the group is to scan unusual objects and create intriguing images.
Will upload some examples when my January quota comes onstream, soon….oh.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
The Greenwich foot tunnel? Thanks for the post on this Andy. I have seen many references to Flickr, but it was the parallax image that grabbed me… I have added one too… of the appropriately named Paral-lel metro station in Barcelona. The l-l is a Catalan thing! http://www.flickr.com/photos/26707618@N00/tags/metro/
Not the Greenwich one, but the Woolwich foot tunnel, because the ferry was stopped on Boxing Day. I like your metro station, but the chocolate pattern in the mug is brilliant!