The Wonder that is Flickr

I've started reading about Flickr, and I was expecting to be impressed. I thought Flickr was just a place to dump all your digital photos, and I'm not really interested in seeing 10,000 pictures of a family that I don't know. I had thought that was all Flickr was about.

I was wrong.

There is an amazing amount of photographic art happening on this site. I am not sure how many of the photographers are bona fide professionals, and how many are "simply" gifted amateurs. I suppose it doesn't actually matter when you are working online, where the ease of publishing means all photographs can be judged on their own merits. Still, I was blown away. LEt me show you some of what I found:

Here is a series of dual photographs taken by a photographer in Atlanta, who stopped regular people and took portraits of them and photos of all the stuff in their bags. They all have the usual keys, cell phone, credit cards, etc - but there are also unusual items that hint at the personality of the person. The way he (she?) photographed both the items and the person also implied a kind of story that I found utterly fascinating.

Looking Into the Past is a "gallery" of photos taken by many people. I like the idea of galleries. Basically, you choose a subject or theme, and then find photos on Flickr that will go in that theme. In other words, you don't have to be a fantastic photographer to come up with a really interesting gallery. Making galleries would be a really fun and educational homework project...if I were a teacher, I'd make a mental note of that.

Here is another gallery with a more meditative theme. Just beautiful. And, of course, each photo is linked back to the original, along with what group(s) the photographer put the picture in. The groups are another interesting way photographs are organized, only this time there is no one "curator" of the group - photographers place their own pictures in there. There is a group for just about everything. The best groups have really vague themes - like the "Red Rule" group. The only rule is that the picture must contain red. The mix of types of photos is riveting.

The other really fascinating thing with Flickr is that it has public archive photograph collectionsm called The Commons. The idea is to make these archival photographs more accessible, and also (maybe) to get more information about the photo from someone, somewhere, who may know something. I got really excited about this idea for a little bit, because the Zoo has some great archival photographs, but they aren't really organized. How fabulous would it be to put it on Flickr?! Unfortunately, at this time they aren't accepting more Commons Photographs (although they encourage interested institutions to put their photos online through a more regular account, and maybe they can be added to the Commons collection later.) Still an interesting idea. Here is a photograph from Oregon State University, of all places. Among the Commons participants is the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and major archives from around the world. Awesome.

What I really like about Flickr right now is the creative potential of the site. You can create your own photo album, or you can create an album using other people's photographs. You can create a collection around anything at all, from a place (many photographs are linked to the specific location where they were taken) to an activity to an idea. And because you are playing with pictures instead of the written word, the ending product is just richer and more interesting. It is exciting.

In fact, I'm going to go play right now!


(Picture of Ben from a great set of the Philly Zoo! Thanks, ucumari!)