Article: iPhone 4 set to rule Flickr in the next few months

It seems that iphoneography is even more popular than I thought.

iPhone 4 set to rule Flickr in the next few months
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/iphone-set-to-rule-flickr-in-the-next-few-months/

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Picture: There's Room at the Bar

Another fine example of what can be created without kilos of kit and £1000's spent.

There's Room at the Bar

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Flickr: Fingers Scintilla's Photostream

Flickr: Fingers Scintilla's Photostream

This is from Fingers Scintilla profile page.

hi there... im here to get peoples views on my photography work.. and to see other amazing artists from around the world :) i want to show my secondlife work that i mix with digital designs.. in a real life enviroment.. i dont think there should be a real life and secondlife art... its just art...:)

i guess my work is a cross between digital design and second life photos... i want to create different images that test me to see if i can create the images i get in my head.
A big thankyou to all the very kind people who have left me testomonials... it means alot please feel free to talk to me on secondlife... or message me here anytime..

Using Flickr

An interesting way of displaying your flickr photos in another web based app. This is produced using flickr slidr

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

FlickR Fatigue...

Well I have had enough - two days I have tried to chase number on FlickR in a prolonged experiment to see what it takes to boast your hit count and I have had enough. This can become a full time job - the groups you join in a vain attempt to boast your numbers are a control freak's nirvana. To send your photograph to their group there are strict rules to follow - don't follow them and you are out. It is quite merciless - resistance is futile. Needless to say I have fallen foul of such rule making and been banned from one of the groups. All you get is the following email...

You have been banned from the *Platinum Peace Award*(w/

6+PeaceAwards)P.1.A.3 orTOTAL BAN Group

Now I could argue that there are reasons for this mistake that lead to the ban but who am I kidding. Two days of trying join in with this mayhem as made me realise that it is a mugs game. Photography is about photographs not about competitive number counting, as if this validates the photograph you have made. Don't get me wrong there are some incredible photographs out there, many with hundreds of hits. However, there are far more which may be of value to their creator but have limited wider appeal yet manage to garner hundreds of hits as well.

It is a free world on Flickr and you publish what you want. It also means that if you want to pursue hits then you can do and good luck to you in your endeavours. I am withdrawing from this mayhem and only publishing what I want when I want. Should they be found by people then fine but I am no longer going after hits - life is really too short and there are too many photographic opportunities going begging to be stuck behind a computer screen all day.

Totally Self Obsessed...

Chickie Brickie 2, originally uploaded by fstop56L Marie.

I know this is an incredibly sexist photograph - reducing a women as a mere object for the gratification of men but this is not a photo by a man but rather by the women in the subject. Her profile states...

'...The main purpose of my photostream is just to have a little fun posing in front of the camera.

I do this with my life long friend "Sally" who is the one who takes most of my photos and helps me with my photostream and the reason (why?) I hear you ask is because basically she is an up and budding semi-professional photographer and just loves taking photos!

Along with the experience it gives us both the whole intention of my photostream is like I said having some fun...'

Now I am not sure if this post ironic feminism or what but you have to admire this women's confidence - she knows what she wants and is not too bothered what other people have to say. It is, after all, a free country and if she is comfortable with this then who am I to criticise? It is just sad that her fun is not shared by the some of the comments left - they clearly do view her as an object for their more, how can one put it - desires? (Since I wrote this I have revisited some of the comments and they seem to have been removed.)

Anyway if you want to see more of fstop56L Marie then click here - it really is bizarre - though not the most bizarre photo stream on Flickr (by a very long stretch!)

Chasing numbers....

Cold and grey outside so I thought I would spend the day trying to work out how to improve my tactics on FlickR to improve the hits I have been receiving. The first thing to do was work out which of the groups I was a member of was effective in generating hits. This meant I reduced the groups down to a more manageable 60 in total.

The second step was to try and identify the groups that generate the largest number of hits per photograph. This is somewhat hit and miss but it would seem the best groups to join are those with strict post one/comment 5 rules. It is amazing how convoluted some of these rules can get and you have to take a moment to make sure you understand all the ins and out.

Once this has been done you then have to start posting your photograph. The one I chose was the puffin above. This had been on my Flickr site for some time but not generating any hits - an ideal candidate for the experiment. So I have spent the greater part of the day posting this to groups and placing the required comments on other photographs. What were the results?

Well spectacular - but not just for the obvious reasons. First the obvious result. As I write this I have generated 166 hits since midnight. Before this I had about 50 in over 6 months so I think you can see it has been a success so far - and the hits keep coming. Now for the less obvious result. I have found some outstanding photographs - which I have added to ever increasing list of favourites This has been really inspirational stuff. Flickr is a huge vat of bubbling photography. There is a thick crust of pornographic at the edge of the vat - some actually very unusual and almost Mapplethorpesque - however most exactly what you might expect. Another ingredient is the mundane. This is even greater than the porn. I just cannot understand why people take so many photographs of their cat - but they do and they are almost as popular as the porn. However amongst all these are the gems - the photographs that, for me, make Flickr worthwhile.

So what have I learnt? Well to have a successful Flickr presences you need to work at it, nothing surprising there. Quality alone is no guarantee of attracting hits you have to sell your wares. In the end Flickr is like life - the more you work at it the better things get.

One final thing. In the time it has taken me to write this paragraph I have had another seven hits.

Another great blog...

Can You Do the Juggernaut?

Yet another great recourse for inspirational photographs - the Flickr Blog provides a wide range of inspiring photographs - including this wonderful photograph by Moira_mc. The only problem with this blog is that it can make you feel really small when compared to the great photography on display. Are well it was ever such.

Working on a project or two...

Greenfinch

A new year and new challenges - well not quite. No I have been working on photographing birds in the garden which hopefully will fulfil at least two projects, perhaps three. I have written about this before but this year I want to concentrate on just a few overall projects and then use the resultant product to service a number of different projects - that way I can concentrate on the photographs rather than think that this could do for this competition and so on.

Greenfinches and Goldfinches on feeders

Well the past few days have certainly fallen into this plan. So I have been freezing myself at home, and sitting in the warmth making some interesting photographs. Very rewarding.

Wren

I have not been neglecting the book project either. I have spent the past few days colour correcting the selected images ( I managed to cut the number down to 50, in part due to the problems of CMYK printing/colour correction.) One interesting thing that has come out of this is that most bird photographs seem to need little colour correction for a CMYK printer - not sure why that is - hope it doesn't mean I have been going about this thing the wrong way. Only time will tell!

Reed Bunting

One final thing - Flickr. I have become more obsessed by this over the past few days. This is just wrong and I am going to reduce my time spent using Flickr. Like any social network system you can loose yourself in this. That being said there are some outstanding photographs on Flickr, hopefully mine can be included in them in some small way

Wonderful Blog...

She Sits In Shadow and Light, original by TJ Scott.

Flickr Walkabout is a wonderful recourse for inspiration and just mind blowing photography - such as the beautiful portrait by TJ Scott. As with any selection some photographs work better than others - however, the quality is uniformly sensational. Well worth a visit.

A recuring search,,,,

Red Deer - Cervus elaphus - Stag calling

This is the most popular photograph I have uploaded to flickr. There are a number of reason for this, one of which it was the first, but the main reason is that it keeps being found as a result of searches involving 'stags' and 'stags fight', 'red deer stags' and so on. Clearly this is a popular subject for a search.

Reflective mood....

Perhaps it is the winter chill or more likely the year ending has started me off in a reflective mood and how the last few months have worked out.

The year started with high hopes which were soon dashed as I had to withdraw from the MA course. At the time this seemed like a big thing but now with benefit of some distance it was not. I hadf wanted to do the course but the reality is that I just like making the photographs that I do rather than for any greater academic purpose.

I'm starting to get the itch to go out to the east coast for the day - probably over the Christmas period - boxing day or new year's day are usually good as people recover from their previous days and nights activities the last thing they want to do is go out and bird watch. Mandy and I had a wonderful day at Rutland Water one boxing day. The place was deserted apart from the wildlife. Brilliant.

So what will the new year bring? Who knows other than more interesting experiences to enjoy. One of these I suspect may well come via flickr. I have spent the last few weeks working on this and slowly it appears to be paying dividends. It is such a wonderful way of experiencing photography from all over the world. There is a whole range of photographs from the best you will see any where to some which you wonder why put them out there - but that is the beauty of flickr - you just don't know what you are going to see. One of the down side of flickr is that your photography will appear in all sorts of strange places - to date my work has appeared in eco warrior news letters and anger management blogs. This can be frustrating but if you publish your work on flickr it is something that you have to come to terms with.

The contacts list is slowly growing. To date I have people who are interested in my photography from all the fours corners of the globe - the latest is from Qatar. This means that my work is being enjoyed by wider group of people than I would ever have hoped for. It also means that I get to experience their views on photography and this has as much to do with their culture and location as their respective photographic skills. It is a fascinating journey.

Another thing I will probably be exploring is the updating the blog on the go. The Posterous experience is catching - it is so simple - especially when using the iPhone. One note of caution though - it can be a long winded thing uploading photos if you are out of reach of a 3G network

Ratcliffe Power Station at Dawn

Ratcliffe Power Station at Dawn

Well I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of my photographs was used by someone else in their blog - in this case Planestupid. I am not too sure what I feel about this. On the one hand it is gratifying that my work is seen as being usable by someone else to illustrate a point. However, I was never asked and I am not sure whether I want my work associated with this type of political action. Perhaps if I had been asked then this might have been a little easier - something I have done before myself and when people have objected I have removed the image straight away. There is also the question of copyright - however to an extent this becomes academic when you publish work to Flickr as anyone can copy the work with impunity.

So what to do? Well in truth I don't know. But is is a new problem for me to confront.

Musings....

Sheep on Peak District Hill

Donna Nook is starting to look less likely to happen. It is nearly a week since I went there and I must say I am still disturbed by the thought of working in a crowd on the beach - just doesn't seem right - after all this should be about the seals rather than some mad scramble to get a photograph. I just don't feel it is the right thing to do. However, I have not made a final decision - yet.

I was going to write about the difficulty of capturing a really interesting nude photograph - but I think I need to give this some more thought before I commit my thoughts to the either. What I have been given a lot of thought to is what to do next year - what sort of projects I should take on and how should I approach them?

This has been prompted by starting to reflect on the last twelve months. I was planning something for the 1 year anniversary of this blog but never got around to it. However, I have been musing on the whole year and what I have achieved and what I want to do next year. So what am I going to do? Well I have a plan - which I will no doubt not stick to - but as I write this it is the latest plan. I intend to work on only three projects over the next 12 months. The first is my ARPS portfolio - I hope to have this ready by the late summer for submission in the autumn. I could submit it now but I want get as many photographs as possible of the same style, lighting etc.

The second project is the Landscape Photographer of the year. This has to be submitted in the July. The final project is the Garden photographer of the year. This is in November. All three give me some time to work on them and they also allow me opportunity submit work to other competitions as they come along. Well that is the plan - goodness knows how long it will last. I will no doubt put something together in the next few days about the Nude - I just have to marshal my thoughts - more musings....

One final thing. I have just crossed the 10000 hits mark on my Flickr account.

More FlickR

Fallow Deer Stags fighting - Bradgate Park

This is getting like a stuck record I know but anyway - Flickr. It is getting a bit of an obsession at the moment. As I write this I am just about to go over the 7000 hits barrier - nothing at all unusual about this apart from it took me 2 years to get to 6000 hits and just over a week to add another 1000 hits. So why the improvement? Well there is no special recipe other than spending a lot more time working with FlickR. I had done some research on how to improve the hits and they all came back with much the same answer - get your photographs out onto as many groups as possible and keep posting comments on other people's photographs. On the whole this has worked but it does have a down side. You do become more and more obsessed with pushing the numbers up that if you are not careful you can forget the whole purpose is make photographs for yourself not Flickr.

So where to go from here? Well one of the things I have found out is that there is a significant difference in the photography in the colder northern hemisphere compared to the sunny and warm tropical area. Well der you may think and you would be true but Flickr does allow you access to photographs that would never see the light of day, if you pardon the pun, in any other way. I have been particularly struck by the work of Rubbia, not just for the work as such but the quality of light. According to her Flickr profile she works in and around Rio de Janeiro and her photographs are full of a wonderful light that we just do get. It has a depth and warmth that is just not available here even on the hottest days. This is a real joy to experience and something I would not have done under normal circumstances.

Now I hope to get off the topic of Flickr. I am working on a guide to the rut at Bradgate park which hopefully I will publish on the blog in the next few days

Flickr oh Flickr...

Stag and Old John - Bradgate Park.

Well what an interesting day I have had working on my photographs and trying to increase the number of hits I have been getting for my photographs on Flickr. To an extent I have achieve this. As I write this I have had over 119 hits - an all time record. So who have I managed to increase the number of hits? Well the only way to do this would appear to be to spend a lot of time in the Flickr domain, publishing your photographs to numerous groups, commenting on other photographs by other people and slowly but surely you get responses. Of course it also helps to have a strong photograph or two but really that is not the best way. There would appear to be no substitute for networking. Get your work noticed and then people will respond - just as in real life.

So what do I think about Flickr now? Well I am not too sure as to its long term viability for myself. Yes it does get your work out there and yes probably a lot more people will see it but there is a snag. You don't develop as a photographer. All you do is get your work buried in a huge pile of photographs which, if I had taken them, would never have seen the light of day let alone published for all the world to see. Don't get me wrong there are some unbelievable photographs on Flickr - photographs I can only wish to be able to take. But these are the exception and so are very difficult to find unless you know where to look - which is a skill I am slowly acquiring.

I suppose, in the end, it is what do you want to get out of Flickr - if it is an education in photography then you will be disappointed. If you want to have a brief glimpse at some amazing photographs then Flickr does deliver - but you have to work at it. If, however, you want to get some gratification for your work from total strangers from all over the world and you enjoy social networking then Flickr really delivers. I'm just not sure if this is what I want.

6000 hits...

Queen Anne Statue - St Pauls Cathedral - London

Well I have hit the magic 6000 mark. Well actually there is nothing magic about this at all other than it is a bit of a milestone for me. I am fully aware that there are many people who may get this number of hits in a much shorter time than I have but it still feels a bit of an achievement. What does that say about me?

So I guess the next question is how long will it take me to get the next 6000 hits? And what does that say about my photography? Or is it just the case that it doesn't mean anything at all and these are just random events. I suspect the last thing is probably closer to the truth than anything else. It does give me something to think about.

My most popular photograph to date...

Red Deer - Cervus elaphus - Stag calling, originally uploaded by Guthlac.

To date this is the most popular photograph I have posted on Flickr There are many reasons for this - not least of which it is one of the first I ever posted!

Southbank - London

Southbank - London
Originally uploaded by Guthlac

As you may have seen I have set up a direct link between my Flickr account and my blog. This is a test of the whole process. One interesting thing is that the spell check is provided by Google Chrome, my favoured browser which doesn't seem to recognise the word Google. Now that is strange!

FlickR....

Titchwell beach

FlickR is a strangely intoxicating service. Every time I decide to reduce my input it keeps coming back with something interesting - interesting enough to keep me uploading photographs. The latest thing is the viewing numbers. Now I am a VERY small fish as far as hits are concerned but I am now up to nearly 6000 hits. Nothing special there but it does give you some feedback as to what is viewed and not from your work. I am fully aware that this is not a scientific survey but it is the widest viewing I am likely to get and this is not to be sniffed at. So perhaps there is some value in flickR afterall. Perhaps...?

One final thing. I have now changed my flickR account name to http://www.flickr.com/photos/guthlac/. It looks a little more professional