I'm inaugurating my return to serious blogging, by explaining what I've been doing all this time. I've been crawling the internet for the latest greatest shiniest web services to make our lives easier. First up, is flickr.com.
flickr.com, is a photo sharing site. That's the simple part. The more complex part is the massive social network-like system built around it, allowing you to discover and be discovered by other great photographers. There are many things to do with it, but here's what I do.
1. I back up my photos.My best photos are sent up in there to flickr. That way, if something goes terribly wrong, I've at least got a few choice specimens forever framed in digital formaldehyde. The nice thing is, even if you've been using the free version of flickr for years, all your full resolution images are in the database, and are unlocked once you make the jump to flickr pro. (24.95 a year, totally worth it.)
2. I get feedback.
One amazing advantage of flickr is it's ability to get feedback on your photos. As I don't subscribe to the "friend everyone with a lens" school of thought, I use groups. I submit my best photos to one of a couple groups that enforce constructive feedback. This gives me a general picture of what people think about it. (For an example of what this does, look at
this picture.)
3. I learn.A little known/used feature of flickr is it's forums. Yet, there is an active community of people ready to tell you the difference between nikons and canons, ready to give opinions on different tripods, and so forth. It's a very helpful community of people, and to check on whether they are valid in their opinion, it's just as easy as clicking on their name, and checking their photostream. If they are an amazing photographer, maybe you should listen to their advice.
Like anywhere on the internet, you have to excercise caution. I wouldn't follow a profile link labeled party_girl69, but I might check out ExperimentWithLight. Just a caution. I've never come across anything offensive on flickr, though I am aware they do have some more "interesting" groups. If a person or group does post offensive things, flickr has always caught it and placed a guard in front of it, a very nice feature.
Flickr is a must use for any aspiring photographer. Thanks to it, I've learned about HDR from such users as
http://flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/2398605326/, and many other subjects, like lomography. I highly recommend flickr to every photographer out there. My flickr account feeds directly into my
lifestream blog, so check it out periodically to find out what I'm snapping.
