Fascinating....
but probably pointless, the flickr graph by Marcos Weskamp allows you to explore the connections between flickr contacts.
It's interesting to see, for sure, but just a way of illustrating the obvious 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon nature of things like flickr. Duh, of course you and your friends are going to share some contacts, etc.
I love flickr, you know that about me, it's the first bookmark I visit every day, but it does have a certain tendency, which is probably caused by all these only-slightly-connected people having only really one thing in common, which is flickr and their interest in photography. The tendency I'm describing is the tendency to disappear up its own arse.
For example, groups are the main way in which you can "publicise" your photos. The function of groups is for people who have taken or are keen to take photos on a similar theme, and share them (or show them off) to each other. Fine. That's how you meet new contacts and broaden your flickr horizons. On the other hand, you do occasionally encounter a group that screams CONTROL FREAKERY at you: "A group for photos taken of buildings with exactly three broken windows." Some of them really are incredibly anal, like the famous (and amazingly popular) "Squared Circle" group. You get the sense of a ringmaster or mad scientist in the background, rubbing his/her hands with glee as the trained chimps learn to recognise circles inside squares.
Boo to me, I hear you say, and maybe so, but I have thought for a long time that one of the universal truths of the innernet is that most of the people who are on it often enough to become really involved in the likes of flickr, or blogger, or even friendsreunited etc, most of them are working in IT. And the thing about people who work in IT, there's a strong tendency towards the anally-retentive, flat-food-only, devil-in-the-details contingent. Which is fine, what you'd expect, but the key here is to remember that this is not the world, nor even a representative sample of the world: it is a little corner of the world that the rest of the world knows nothing about.
For myself, I like to look at the photos, and I have my favourite flickr photographers, like my friend James* (Swerve), or Twinmama, or Romanlily*, but I do avoid the control freak groups. I prefer groups which allow a wide remit, and free interpretation, just because I'm one of those people who would do something off the wall and odd and not quite what people were expecting. Not to make a value judgment about it, but I'm eccentric that way.
The up-the-arse tendency was never more evident than on the almost-famous flickr coincidence thread. Now, I do think it's interesting that someone took a picture which included someone else taking a picture, and that both pictures ended up on flickr (it's still a small enough corner of the world for that to be remarkable). But then as you go down the forum thread it gets more and more up its own arse, until it starts to read like the minutes of a Critical Theory seminar (I've been there, and it's not a pleasant experience) where the boys try to outdo each other with arcane references and questions, which nobody really knows what they're talking about, especially the boys.
That is all. * Except to add, if you were in the market for one of the excellent low-priced digital SLRs like the Nikon D70 or the Canon EOS 300D (or Canon Digital Rebel, rather embarrassingly, for Americans), you could do no worse than look at the photostreams of Swerve and Romanlily. Swerve uses the D70, and his photos - mostly landscape or abstract - are clear and sharp, with natural colours and great detail; Romanlily has a 300D (Rebel), and her photos - which include some fantastic portraits and foodie shots - are full of rich colours and flatter their subjects. Which means, in short, that I'd choose the D70 if I was principally a landscape photographer, and the 300D if I was more into portraiture. That's a broad brush way of looking at things, and of course you can do all kinds of photography with both cameras, but if you look at the photostreams you'll see what I'm talking about.
flickr
It's interesting to see, for sure, but just a way of illustrating the obvious 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon nature of things like flickr. Duh, of course you and your friends are going to share some contacts, etc.
I love flickr, you know that about me, it's the first bookmark I visit every day, but it does have a certain tendency, which is probably caused by all these only-slightly-connected people having only really one thing in common, which is flickr and their interest in photography. The tendency I'm describing is the tendency to disappear up its own arse.
For example, groups are the main way in which you can "publicise" your photos. The function of groups is for people who have taken or are keen to take photos on a similar theme, and share them (or show them off) to each other. Fine. That's how you meet new contacts and broaden your flickr horizons. On the other hand, you do occasionally encounter a group that screams CONTROL FREAKERY at you: "A group for photos taken of buildings with exactly three broken windows." Some of them really are incredibly anal, like the famous (and amazingly popular) "Squared Circle" group. You get the sense of a ringmaster or mad scientist in the background, rubbing his/her hands with glee as the trained chimps learn to recognise circles inside squares.
Boo to me, I hear you say, and maybe so, but I have thought for a long time that one of the universal truths of the innernet is that most of the people who are on it often enough to become really involved in the likes of flickr, or blogger, or even friendsreunited etc, most of them are working in IT. And the thing about people who work in IT, there's a strong tendency towards the anally-retentive, flat-food-only, devil-in-the-details contingent. Which is fine, what you'd expect, but the key here is to remember that this is not the world, nor even a representative sample of the world: it is a little corner of the world that the rest of the world knows nothing about.
For myself, I like to look at the photos, and I have my favourite flickr photographers, like my friend James* (Swerve), or Twinmama, or Romanlily*, but I do avoid the control freak groups. I prefer groups which allow a wide remit, and free interpretation, just because I'm one of those people who would do something off the wall and odd and not quite what people were expecting. Not to make a value judgment about it, but I'm eccentric that way.
The up-the-arse tendency was never more evident than on the almost-famous flickr coincidence thread. Now, I do think it's interesting that someone took a picture which included someone else taking a picture, and that both pictures ended up on flickr (it's still a small enough corner of the world for that to be remarkable). But then as you go down the forum thread it gets more and more up its own arse, until it starts to read like the minutes of a Critical Theory seminar (I've been there, and it's not a pleasant experience) where the boys try to outdo each other with arcane references and questions, which nobody really knows what they're talking about, especially the boys.
That is all. * Except to add, if you were in the market for one of the excellent low-priced digital SLRs like the Nikon D70 or the Canon EOS 300D (or Canon Digital Rebel, rather embarrassingly, for Americans), you could do no worse than look at the photostreams of Swerve and Romanlily. Swerve uses the D70, and his photos - mostly landscape or abstract - are clear and sharp, with natural colours and great detail; Romanlily has a 300D (Rebel), and her photos - which include some fantastic portraits and foodie shots - are full of rich colours and flatter their subjects. Which means, in short, that I'd choose the D70 if I was principally a landscape photographer, and the 300D if I was more into portraiture. That's a broad brush way of looking at things, and of course you can do all kinds of photography with both cameras, but if you look at the photostreams you'll see what I'm talking about.
flickr
posted by Anonymous at
Thursday, February 10, 2005
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