A few photos found on Flickr recently from a variety of sources. Lots of great inspiration and a variety of styles. Click through and add some to your faves.
Flickr
Finally something for my much loved photo service after years of languishing in the back room without much attention. Some of the changes are starting to roll out and hopefully more are coming in the next few days. Worth reading more about some of the changes planned.
One of the best things about Flickr is the community of other photographers that exists around it. This is the primary reason I’m still so addicted to it. Perhaps one of the best functions of this community is the ability to mark a photo as a favourite – add it to your library of things you like. I have a fairly large set of favourites, currently running at 4,144 photos so far!
For me one of the best ways of finding new and interesting work is by looking at another users favourites collection. It’s easy to go from user to user and find a bunch of incredible work to look at. It’s like a curated guide to Flickr.
…not in real life but on Flickr. I’ve been getting back into uploading more personal work to Flickr rather than just more formal work stuff thanks to getting my hands on that lovely Fujifilm X100.
I used to be a bit obsessed with hits, favourites and the possibility of getting into explore which is a way of showing what’s popular at present on site. This was during the 365 project time but that moment seems to have passed now. Having said that I have a set of images which gets updated each night showing which of my shots are most popular – via the very useful Flickr set manager. As a side you’d think that this kind of “smart set” would be built into Flickr as a standard feature but since being bought by Yahoo where all development seems to have stopped.
Anyway, back on track – I uploaded this image I took in the recent thick fog we had in London and added it to a few groups on Flickr. Since then it’s gone bonkers. At the time of writing this post it’s had 525 views, 35 comments and 59 favourites as well as making it into explore. I think I have better pictures but this seems to have appealed to a bunch of people.
![Misty morning in East Dulwich [Explore]](http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6094/6369166809_8cf020dbd0.jpg)
I found a few printed photos the other day, nothing special, just a few snap shots, but I really enjoyed looking at them again. This got me thinking about how I would never go back more than a week or two on my Flickr stream and ever look at any of my shots from the past – partly the whole reason for taking pictures surely? iPhoto doesn’t cut it either as it’s so bloated and slow and currently crashes constantly – it suffers from the same problem as Flickr I guess, I’m not going to sit there and go through them. However I have a shoe box of 6″x4″ prints (matt with borders) from the last few years beside my desk are all from film cameras I occasionally use like Dad’s OM20, my lovely LC-A, Nikon F801 or the Olympus Trip 35. A lot of the pictures are rubbish but they remind me of being somewhere or doing something which I’d probably forgotten about. I guess I find a bit more of a connection with the printed version
Flickr is obviously my main online store of photos (some people use Facebook or Picasa etc). I’m always uploading new stuff of course but this seems to only enhance the transitory nature of these images, it’s always about the next image. I’ve also become a lot more critical of what I upload, so snap shots of friends don’t always make it. Do these go on Facebook instead? Hard to say.
In terms of digital storage this lot all sits in a big folder on my external drive titled “The great JPEG dump”. Paid work is all organised neatly but it’s always been hard to know what to do with the personal images. I was going to use Adobe Carousel but I can’t see that working out.
So I’ve decided that I’m going to go back to printing out actual photos and buying a box for each year. Some physical objects that I can look back on – maybe at Christmas each year and remember what’s gone on. I’ve found a cheap online printers and will do a set each month, I’ve even found somewhere that does a nice shoe box (yes you can find anything with Google). A bit like the 365 project but longer, maybe one box for each year. I’m going to go back and do all of 2011 and keep going as long as I can.
Updated: It’s working out quite well printing all these pics. Just sorting out the 2011 box now.
About two years ago I went on the amazing Seb Rogers Photocourse with a cast of characters, some of whom I manage to keep in contact via the joys of Twitter. I don’t think I realised how much I learnt that weekend but now that I’m trying to make a part income from photography that I realise that almost all of what I saw that weekend was of use. Exposure, focus, RAW processing, histograms, basic camera technique etc etc. I’d read about all of this stuff on the web before but it didn’t really click until then. After putting it into practice afterwards things got a lot easier and allowed me to take a few more steps up the ladder. Plenty more steps to go but it really helped me on my way.
Anyway, the point of this is that the below photo is of Guy Parry who was on the course.
It also happens to be one of the most viewed photos on my Flickr stream, mainly due to being added to the Strobist group I’d imagine. This was a little plop into a stream that we both rode through it taking turns to light each other with a flash held by Seb (Voice Activated Lightstand). I’d always wondered what those photos turned out like and Guy uploaded a few today. Being the other side of the camera means that I don’t normally see decent pics of me riding. Nice to see a few decent ones at last. Thanks Guy!
Lighting test
Plop
Nice panning shot
Which is a good thing. She’s got a great eye for seeing amazing things to take pictures of (some are quite bizarre) and has now started uploading to Flickr also. Go and have a good look (and chuckle) at the pictures of toilets, people dancing at bus stops and shoes on pavements – amongst other things.
This year has been a good year for developing my photography skills, so what better way to finish it off than showing a few night shots I’ve just take around Peckham. Off to The Gowlett shortly but had to nip out to get my fix with the tripod especially now the weather is warmer.
Happy New Year!
Yesterday I went out to West London to do a shoot for a firm of Engineers I work with a fair bit at the office. They’ve been working on a large house that is having a sizeable basement being dug underneath it – about nine metres down or around two and a half storeys. They’ve essentially supported the whole house on columns (piles which have become columns) as they’ve excavated. Seriously impressive stuff and quite a feat to see in the flesh (or metal and concrete rather). I love a good bit if engineering and this really satisfies. Incredible what we can do and seriously impressive stuff.
After this I headed back into town to get a few shots of The Shard and see whether I had enough shift on the lens to be able to capture the top of it. I’ve been seeing quite a few shots of it on Flickr recently and thought I should really go and get some myself. Turns out I did have enough reach on the lens and I spent a few hours waiting on London Bridge freezing my arse off to get the following shot. Well worth it I think for that final one and just go the timing of the clouds right to get the moon in too. Also tried out using a Universal White Balance setting to get more dynamic range out of the D700. Seemed to work pretty well although the previews on the back of the camera come out all green, kind of cross processed.
