My Flikr rant

[Michaelaw]

I always find myself wondering why people post a hundred images in one fell swoop in some Flikr groups of Ho Hum family pic nick images and the like. I always end up thinking, "why didn't they just choose a couple of the best shots and submit those?" Does this bother any of you guys? Maybe I should go back on my meds? :D

[kurtdriver]

I don't know about those meds, but I do wonder about some very ordinary pictures. Maybe they don't realize how ordinary those photos are? A while back, I was sitting in Stanley Park near the fire engine waiting for some other people, when a guy came down the stairs to the engine, stood right in front and snapped a pic, and then went back up the stairs, all within 20 seconds. This is how most people think you take pictures. And they are, usually, happy with the results.

[AntZ]

I always find myself wondering why people post a hundred images in one fell swoop in some Flikr groups of Ho Hum family pic nick images and the like. I always end up thinking, "why didn't they just choose a couple of the best shots and submit those?" Does this bother any of you guys? Maybe I should go back on my meds? :D

Yep, I think it is strange. Especially when some of the pics are so ordinary. Nothing keep photography interesting more than diversity.

[AcadieLibre]

Why I rarely look at flikr photos, I dislike the layout, find so many average or below average photos, and most people I have found just post anything they take photos of. I use flikr to host pics I use to post here outside that I rarely use or ever peruse through the photos too much work to find the few outstanding photos, but thats just me :twocents:

[Iguanasan]

I haven't noticed anyone post a bunch of boring old photos to groups per se but I have come across people who have uploaded tons of boring old photos. If they were family photos I would kinda understand but they are very poor photos of street corners, buildings, parks, etc. If you check their profile you'll find that it's stuff in their own neighbourhood.

What I've discovered is that those people just haven't taken advantage of a place like Photography.ca! They are trying, they are just not good at it.

As for browsing Flickr. I have spent some time browsing and it's hard to find the gold in the dirt but when you do it's generally worth it. :D

[kurtdriver]

As for browsing Flickr. I have spent some time browsing and it's hard to find the gold in the dirt but when you do it's generally worth it. :D

My thoughts exactly.

[crystalb]

Has anyone tried or is currently using Smug Mug? You have to pay, but you can design your own webpage........Any thoughts?

[1putts]

Has anyone tried or is currently using Smug Mug? You have to pay, but you can design your own webpage........Any thoughts?

I can offer some thoughts. I use flickr and smugmug.

Flickr has a pretty poor layout that makes browsing peoples streams almost painful. Smugmug has an incredible layout for presenting your photos. When people ask to see my photos, I send them my smugmug link and then mention flickr.

Not only is the smugmug layout superb, but if you upload an original sized photo, smugmug will offer up to 7 viewing sizes rather than flickrs 2 size solution. This is especially helpful for linking photos to other sites, blogs, emails, whatever. You can basically choose thumbnail all the way up to original. If you only want to offer small sizes, its just a matter of customizing the gallery options. I've set my limit at X2.

Here's my smugmug link so you can see a default layout. I went with the basic account so don't have access to html customization.

1putts' Photos (http://1putts.smugmug.com/)


Flickr reigns supreme for social networking. The groups, favs, comments, and contact system are the main draw for me. Smugmug's social networking is severely lacking.

Featurewise Smugmug is much more robust. For instance, smugmug allows you to hide or password protect entire galleries. So if you have family photos or events that you want to remain private, you can do this easily. Viewers don't even need to sign up for an account. Just email them the gallery link and password and they'll have complete access. When you combine this feature with the ability to sell prints, this is the main reason wedding and other pro photogs choose smugmug.

As far as finding gold. There's plenty on smugmug, but it can be difficult to dig for.

SmugMug Photo & Video Sharing. You look better here. (http://www.smugmug.com/community/NaturePhotographers/popular/all#83779304_kx52v)

SmugMug Photo & Video Sharing. You look better here. (http://www.smugmug.com/community/Birds/popular/all#125787395_hQSj9)

SmugMug Photo & Video Sharing. You look better here. (http://www.smugmug.com/community/Landscape/popular/all#74475750_mxdVR)

Overall, I find they complement each really well and will probably continue to use both sites. If you don't care about social networking, are mainly concerned with features and presentation, or want to link photos to a blog or other site, I'd go with smugmug. If social networking is your thing, then flickr is definitely the best option.

If you decide to sign up for smugmug, coupon code "flickr" will get you 50% off the 1st year!

[JAS_Photo]

I joined Imagekind. You can sell your photos, socialize, join groups etc. Basically it's flickr artsy fartsy. I don't know how sucessful people are at selling stuff on there but it is free for basic or if you pay you can have your own gallery. You can not link for use on forums and the sizes they show are quite small. But as far as purchasing photos or art they use very good paper, frames and mats. If I give someone a photo, I print it up on Hahnemule so if someone were to buy a photo I would like to see it printed up to it's best advantage as well.

http://www.imagekind.com/

[F8&Bthere]

Michael I think you should consider going back on your meds ;) because Flickr isn't really about artistic standards. The photography is just part of the package. Think of this: if you have friends or family that live far away, anyone who has ever tried sending loads of crappy birthday snapshots to them through email (without drastically compromising resolution) can relate to what a great thing it is to just email a link to them and they can download at (usually) full resolution. They can choose the ones they want to print, frame, or load onto their digital picture frame, etc. And when you shoot that New Year's Eve party or trip to the zoo with the kids you can put it up there without having to decide who to send it to or whatever. Do it once, even better if you have an upload plugin for Lightroom or something, and everyone's taken care of. Flickr can be either the online art gallery (albeit with the aforementioned format imperfections), the photographic special interests chat and share community, and also the online crappy-snapshots-of-special occasions for long distance family and friends photo album, and for some people it is also about the backup or storage of said boring images.

Addendum- and I think if you are wanting to have a professional look and offer images for sale it's mostly agreed that Flickr won't suffice- there's smugmug, zenfolio and others for that purpose. But look at how many noteworthy photographers do have Flickr galleries- like Trey "Stuck in Customs" Ratcliff, Nikon's Image Doctors, Martin Bailey, and many many others. I actually see tons of great work on Flickr

[Marko]

There's way more family/vacation pics on smugmug... way more.
but you are right Maw many people just upload their snaps on flickr because it's free. ALSO you don't need to email pics anymore ...just point them to yr photostream...... There's lotsa good stuff on flickr but it's mixed in with lotsa crap as well.

In order not to threadjack, I started a new thread of the differences between these sites (Flickr - SmugMug - Deviant art - Imagekind) here http://www.photography.ca/Forums/f7/flickr-smugmug-deviant-art-imagekind-5772.html

[AntZ]

......Flickr isn't really about artistic standards. The photography is just part of the package. Think of this: if you have friends or family that live far away, anyone who has ever tried sending loads of crappy birthday snapshots to them through email (without drastically compromising resolution) can relate to what a great thing it is to just email a link to them and they can download at (usually) full resolution. They can choose the ones they want to print, frame, or load onto their digital picture frame, etc. And when you shoot that New Year's Eve party or trip to the zoo with the kids you can put it up there without having to decide who to send it to or whatever. Do it once, even better if you have an upload plugin for Lightroom or something, and everyone's taken care of. Flickr can be either the online art gallery (albeit with the aforementioned format imperfections), the photographic special interests chat and share community, and also the online crappy-snapshots-of-special occasions for long distance family and friends photo album, and for some people it is also about the backup or storage of said boring images.


I agree, but Michael was wondering "Why flood a group?".:twocents:

[Mars Observer]

I hear ya Michael. There are times I've said to myself: 'if I have to look... at yet *another* picture... of yet *another* flower...' (no offense to anyone's flower pics - I've just been over-exposed to them).

But Flikr seems to be many things to many people - and not just about fine-art photography.

Honestly, I think grandparents would much rather see an out-of-focus snapshot of the grandchildren with too much flash and a partial thumb over the lens, than an Ansel-Adams-esc landscape.

And the photos that aren't of people... well... at least the thought was made to be creative. Maybe that seed of creativity will someday blossom into... a flower :clown:

[F8&Bthere]

I agree, but Michael was wondering "Why flood a group?".:twocents:

well you wouldn't be flooding anything but your own photostream so I would figure who cares? Maybe you just got back from a European vacation and have 600 images you've culled down to 100, and you want both the share with family/friends benefit and the backup/storage benefit flickr can offer. Am I missing something here?

The thing very much related to this that I dislike as a paid flickr member is the lack of control in how things are displayed. So if I upload a pile of family vacation shots for Grandma and Grandpa overseas, that is what everyone is going to see for the default 1st few or more pages of my photostream. Newest uploads first right? But maybe I want other visitors, say members of this forum, to see my more artistic efforts if they happen to drop in via a link or if they saved me as a contact...it's like google and other search engines in that most people won't bother looking past the first few pages. So if all they see is boring snapshots, it's not doing much for my image as a photographer. Yes they can go directly to my sets or collections but not everyone does that when the photostream is right in their face.

[JAS_Photo]

I guess the owners of a group can prevent 'dumping' by allowing only a certain number of photos per day and making commenting mandatory. I really do not see how someone has the time to add a photo to ten or twenty groups as some I have seen are. My family photos are in a separate file viewable only to contacts marked family.

[F8&Bthere]

ok now i feel stupid, michael DID say into Flickr groups. I've never noticed this because I don't go look at many groups and those that I do look at seem fine - i mean no boring snapshot floods

:sorry:

[Mars Observer]

I guess the owners of a group can prevent 'dumping' by allowing only a certain number of photos per day and making commenting mandatory. I really do not see how someone has the time to add a photo to ten or twenty groups as some I have seen are. My family photos are in a separate file viewable only to contacts marked family.

And some groups are 'by invitation only'...

[F8&Bthere]

ok let's see if I can contribute to this thread without putting my foot in my mouth again....

One possibility that comes to mind is that the guilty parties might be using something like the Flickr upload plugin for Lightroom and at some point in time checked off the option to automatically copy uploaded images to a certain group they subscribe to and then minimized the option settings for that in the export dialog or bypass that dialog altogether using a right click export and they don't even know they are doing this?

So last time they uploaded some HDR shot and wanted to post it to some HDR group, and then next time they are uploading a pile of vacation shots without even checking that setting?

[Michaelaw]

Flooding your own stream is fine, who cares! Most of the groups I belong to allow only so many uploads a day usually between 1 and 6. Sometimes during my bored moments I sort of surf groups if you will which starts by liking someones group post, checking their photostream and linking off to other groups from there. That process quite often takes me to no upload limits groups where some twit has uploaded 2 gazillion bad smoke pics? I just can't fathom why:confused: Not that it's a huge deal but why one wouldn't take a few of the best shots to add to the group, if I want to see more, I'll check out your stream. On another note, I used to upload to another site where if your image got enough votes it was shuffled into a hall of best work or some such thing But I stopped because it got stupid! Some idiot started uploading pics of computer batteries and if you enlarged the shot you got a website address and price of the battery. The person started slow but before you know it they were uploading ten at a time. The mind behind that sort of behavior is...........

[casil403]

I know what you are talking about Michael and I've seen it.
My best guess is that perhaps they think those shots are in fact really good! I also think their work gets reinforced by other people making comments about their work. I remember a thread Raiven posted a while aback about a guy on flickr that posted a photo of what IMO was simply an ordinary flower. I mean it was nice, but no big deal or so I thought anyhow. He had over 100 comments on that photo with all kinds of words such as magnificent, awesome, etc, etc.! I just didn't see what others were seeing. So I think sometimes it might be a bit of an ego thing really. I have to say too that in all honesty it's nice when people leave me positive feedback on my images and it feels good. So I can get that some people might be doing that for those types of reasons.
The thing of it is, that anyone can go out and get a digital camera, slap it into auto mode, point it at someting, start shooting and then they think they are a "photographer" :lightbulb instead of taking the time to learn the basics. I think alot of times that might be part of it too. Anyone can also go out buy some fancy ingredients, a cookbook and believe they are a chef too...Then their friends convince them to open up a restarurant which goes in the toilet within 2 years. (I've heard that story form my own circle of people but I didn't believe the hype and actually have an idea of how hard it is to own a successful restaurant...much like being a successful photographer ;)) I liken flickr to almost the same thing sometimes.
Also, recently as a rule, I generally stopped belonging to flickr groups that force me to comment on other people's photos. IMO, commentingon others photos should be something that is simple common courtesy and I should be allowed to comment on stuff when I want to, not when it is forced upon me.
That might also contirbute to it.
I started posting onto Flickr as a way that my family back on the westcoast could see what I am doing. They are very supportive of my hobby and want to see how it's progressing. It's easy for friends too to see what I've been up to also. Now I find it a bit of a neat social network thing much like being on this forum. :)

[Bambi]

I could make the same rant about Facebook. I belong to some photo groups that have a theme and you post to the theme. Sometimes what gets the most comments boggles the mind. But then I keep in mind that if I post it's to recieve feedback so there you have it.

I have found interesting art/photos here:
deviantART: where ART meets application! (http://www.deviantart.com/)

I joined because I thought I needed to be a member to see the art work my daughter uploaded. turned out I didn't but I remain because you can see some really interesting stuff there.

[Greg_Nuspel]

Talking about Facebook are you secure (http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=3249&tag=nl.e550)

I like smugmug for having ones own URL but I have to find time to customize it and upload more photos gregnuspelphoto.com

I only belong to flickr groups that need approval to join.