Monday, August 15, 2011

on the ups and downs of flickr

just going through my draft posts...started this one clear back in march, but it actually still seems to ring true now...and i do still love the scarf.
on self-presents and belonging and not cleaning that mirror
i struggle with flickr. i go through periods of adoring it (usually in january, at the beginning of a new 365 project) and then i hit the doldrums and i begin to loathe it. there's so much pretense there. i saw someone one day who had commented on a photo, saying, "heartbreakingly beautiful, sympathetic DOF!" and i was like really? really? it was one of those rather prosaic photos of the aftermath of lunch at an outdoor café that are so in vogue. and how can depth of field possibly be sympathetic? and what purpose did that pretense really serve? but my impatience with it also tells me that i'm in one of those periods where i've gone off flickr.

i find flickr to be way more cliquish than blogging. groups there are much more defined (and by groups, i don't mean the ones you add your photos to) and it's so hard to break into them and i've tried with a couple of different circles that rejected me. i think that basically, i don't really feel that much at home on flickr. i'm just much more at home on blogger. but some part of you wants to break into certain groups and belong a little bit anyway. so i do things like buy myself this lovely scarf from the scarfshop as a little self-prezzie for my birthday, even tho' i'm not even recognized as a peripheral member of that particular flickr crowd (despite my best efforts). 

sometimes, you just want something that lets you feel you belong for a few minutes. even if only in your mind.

7 comments:

will said...

Agreed. i think there's need of a discussion about social networking and independent art. Mutually exclusive or something else?

Currently I'm pissed at Flickr, Facebook and Twitter. Some time ago I deleted all of them ... yet I cannot delete their cookies from my Safari cache. Even if I do a wipe of all website data and delete all cookies w/in Safari... when I reboot, the cookies for these sites reappear. Insidious.

julochka said...

just had to share this piece that kristina sent to me...http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/flickr-not-dead-but-losing-the-soul-of-photo-sharing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 it's interesting that i'm not the only one that's gone a bit off flickr...

Pia K said...

i totally agree on the pretentiousness of some flickr-ies, but as i've never liked to belong to groups or cliques (me and the group-thing...;) it doesn't bother me, i enjoy some photos immensely, the kind people (and not the magazines and people who want to use photos free of charge, they do piss me off!), the talents.

i did begun uploading my photos there as an extra safety thing originally, so i'm not really bothered about the rest. i don't surf flickr that much, i don't even have the time to look through the contacts feed. i simply do not care:)

i love that scarf though!! i've been trying to find a similar blue one, naughty you, i have to check this out now...:) and you can never have to many scarves!

Joanna Jenkins said...

I've heard other people say the exact same thing.
Have you seen Pintereest.com???? I'm enjoying that and added one of your photos (the metal chairs with the blue flower). It's still a small enough site to not get caught up in the hassle of cliques.
Love the scarf.
jj

Anonymous said...

oh i agree completely. i hadnt posted anything on flickr for months then went back to add a few photos this week, and i realised why i hadnt posted on there for a while. dont like the cliques and yes sometimes the comments seem very weird.

so much more at home with blogging!

Elise Ann Wormuth said...

I know for sure that there are cliques on flickr, some of which are very full of themselves, but I've also met some very nice people there, ones that were very generous with their help and who taught me a great deal about photography.

Loredana said...

Know my opinion on cliques?....they're a bunch of people that NEED and LOOK for the acceptance of others in their very group. Know what I think about you?...you're SO BEYOND that and your photography shows that. It shows that you don't need flickr to massage your back and say 'awesome picture, great color' or whatever it is photographers say to one another (lol) but what I'm saying is what Kanye says 'F the haters!" got me? ;-)
Not very poetic but you get the drift.