Flickr

Michael Markey

Michael Markey

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I`d be interested in the boards view regarding the photo site Flickr.
I`ve used it for many years but there are now other ways to repost shots and ... at least for me ... sites such as Insta provide more varied and interesting content .
Am I missing something ?

Michael Markey
 
You may be missing 'Groups,' I think that's the real key to Flickr. I'm not personally aware of any other platform that offers curated photographic 'pools' that reflect various aesthetic outlooks. I prefer this human touch to IG's algorithms. Flickr is also a much better environment for viewing photography, you can see photos at higher resolution and generally there's just a much more favorable signal to noise ratio.
 
I'm still on Flickr but find it somewhat dead; a lot of the old groups that I used to love are ghost towns now.

Instagram is literal hell for me. I stay away from it as much as possible - Meta keeps changing the user experience to make it more TikTok-esque and that is the last thing I want.

To be honest, the only place I post photos and talk to people now other than RFF is Mastodon. There's a pretty great photography and art community on there; it reminds me of Twitter in the early days before it became full of tech bros and armchair politicians.
 
Coldkennels said:
To be honest, the only place I post photos and talk to people now other than RFF is Mastodon. There's a pretty great photography and art community on there; it reminds me of Twitter in the early days before it became full of tech bros and armchair politicians.
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Yeah, Mastodon's very nice. Follow the #BelieveInFilm hashtag.
 
AlexMogens said:
Yeah, Mastodon's very nice. Follow the #BelieveInFilm hashtag.
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Also #FilmPhotography, and I'm quite a fan of #FensterFreitag (if only because it amuses me that so many people in the English-speaking world have adopted a German hashtag!).

I like the fact that you can follow hashtags in your feed the same way you can follow people; it does make it a lot easier to discover new and/or niche stuff on there. Of course, it also works the other way - it's much easier to get eyes on your stuff, too. The founder of Mastodon (Eugen Rochko, @[email protected]) is a film photographer himself and "boosted" one of my photos last week, and it went nuts. I've never had so many likes/shares/comments/etc. on a film photo on any other platform... so that's something.
 
Flickr is free for posting photos up to a thousand and there is no restriction on linking your photos to other sites as was the case with Photobucket which created such an ongoing disaster. Being able to organize your own work in Albums is also a big plus.
I'm looking mainly for the inspiration which photographic excellence provides and Flickr facilitates that by letting me curate my viewing experience. I can follow groups and individuals whose work I admire. Most of those I follow have posted their work in the I Shoot Film group which ensures good results by allowing just one posting per person per day, thus resulting in only the best being shown.
I have been the moderator of a couple groups at Flickr. I previously oversaw the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim group where I often posted my own work to keep things going. Now, I oversee New Mexico Film Photographers and I move that along by spotting shots made in NM and inviting them to post in the group.
The discussions sections allowed for each group have seen a considerable decline, but there are still some useful comments to be found. I follow the groups which feature film cameras of particular interest to me including the Pen-F, the Mercury II, the Hawkeye Flash, and the vuws.
 
As a visitor, I like Flickr groups, though I often find that the last real discussion activity was a decade prior, and without someone actively managing them, they get spammed pretty badly.

Can't say much about IG, because without an account, I can only browse a very limited amount (I don't want to give Meta any more info than they've already harvested by other means).
 
I like Flickr a lot, but I've noticed some strange effects on the pictures, the tone and colour of them is changing all the time. It is difficult to anticipate that. The depth of "the blackest black" and the colors of the "white" of the black and white photos are constantly changing. Very annoying.

Erik.
 
I've been happily using flickr for many years, and it offers the ability to view photos taken with almost any camera or lens made in the past 20 years. As long as metadata or tags are available, or the images are posted to the appropriate groups, they can be found pretty easily.

A lot of RFFers are on flickr, and I follow as many as I can. There's even a RFF group on flickr, which I consider an emergency contact point if this site ever goes down for maintenance or error (touch wood).

As for Instagram, it is a necessary evil for me as I have to use it to maintain a relevant social media presence for work. Yuck. The interface is annoying, the constant push towards vertical video and square images is aggravating, and what is popular on IG is usually very heavily processed or too garish for my taste. There are some very decent photographers on Instagram because of social media relevance and marketing, but there are many on flickr, too.
 
Coldkennels said:
I'm still on Flickr but find it somewhat dead; a lot of the old groups that I used to love are ghost towns now.

Instagram is literal hell for me. I stay away from it as much as possible - Meta keeps changing the user experience to make it more TikTok-esque and that is the last thing I want.

To be honest, the only place I post photos and talk to people now other than RFF is Mastodon. There's a pretty great photography and art community on there; it reminds me of Twitter in the early days before it became full of tech bros and armchair politicians.
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Yep .I`m finding Flickr a bit dead too at least for me .Not heard of Mastodon.
I`ll look it up.
Thank you

Michael Markey
 
Erik van Straten said:
I like Flickr a lot, but I've noticed some strange effects on the pictures, the tone and colour of them is changing all the time. It is difficult to anticipate that. The depth of "the blackest black" and the colors of the "white" of the black and white photos are constantly changing. Very annoying.

Erik.
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I must admit that I haven`t noticed that .
I`m sure that you are correct .
You have a very good eye .

Michael Markey
 
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AlexMogens said:
You may be missing 'Groups,' I think that's the real key to Flickr. I'm not personally aware of any other platform that offers curated photographic 'pools' that reflect various aesthetic outlooks. I prefer this human touch to IG's algorithms. Flickr is also a much better environment for viewing photography, you can see photos at higher resolution and generally there's just a much more favorable signal to noise ratio.
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I`m in a few the the groups RFF (of course), Leica ,Neuer Fotopark ,a Voitlander group and an SL2s group.
Michael Markey
 
That’s my worry as well. I don’t watermark my stuff so would be annoyed to have this happen. I downsize to what looks reasonable on screen and then only upload to a couple photography sites, RFF, Photonet, and a travel site. I did goof up a few days ago and put one in the Eastern Europe thread that was a a bit too big, but it uploaded OK.

My logic is that a lower resolution image is less likely to get swiped than one full size. Unless it’s XXX rated then it’ll be a feeding frenzy.

I have a few images on Dropbox, but those were just archived while changing computers.

Some of my photos are from a time and place that no longer exists and may be of interest to others. Have a bunch from early seventies Afghanistan before the Russians arrived. Exotic street and back alleys with a Barnack, great fun.

Have been thinking of setting up something on Flicker, but have no idea what resolution pixel wise is optimal.

Glenn
 
Timmyjoe said:
Was on Flickr years ago, then found that folks were taking my images off Flickr and using them for commercial purposes. Contacted Flickr and their attitude was "Tough Luck, nothing we're gonna do about it." That was the last day any of my images ever appeared on Flickr.

Best,
-Tim
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There's nothing they can do about it. I've done a good amount of web design work, and I don't know of any way to stop people from taking photos from a website. I asked my son, a software engineer with a computer science degree and he said its impossible. So you cannot blame Flickr.
 
Coldkennels said:
Erik, honestly: how is this even remotely relevant to the thread? Great photo maybe, but dumping photos into a discussion like this is basically just spam.
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I'm sorry, in my opinion it is relevant to the thread, I've just posted the picture to Flickr! All my pictures like this are on Flickr. I copy them from Flickr to post them here. Flickr gives a good overview of the work. An overview of the work is in a digital environment very difficult. That's exactly what Flickr is good for. I thought everybody would understand this.

Erik.
 
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