Flickring

I haven't had much of a chance to get out and do any photography over the last couple of weeks, but I have a trip to Canberra soon, and hope to get some photo opportunities then.  So I figured that I ought to add somethying to the blog otherwise I'm in danger of having the whole month go by with just a single article... NOT the way to encourage one's readers to come back for more! 

So with no new photos to play with, and having exhausted the few good ones I have already, I was having a look at flickr (no - I don't have an account - or rather, I DIDN'T have an account - probably one of the few people in the world that has resisted both facebook and flickr thus far), just to see what all the hype is about.  I already had a Yahoo Messenger account from years ago, and somehow when I went to the flickr homepage just to have a look, I suddenly found myself with a flickr account being created... I don't remember asking it to do it, but I'm just a poor old man, my sight is dim, my eyes are poor (my nose is nackered) - who knows what buttons I accidentally clicked :-o

Well, once it had gone to all that trouble on my behalf, it seemed a bit churlish not to reciprocate, so I uploaded a photo.  It was so easy, I did another one, and another... "Whoa there," I thought to myself "let's not get carried away... I never actually wanted this in the first place".... so I created a couple of 'sets' to put my photos in. It was too late - I was getting carried away! Having created some sets, I needed to post more photos to fill them - and so it snowballed (in a very minor way compared to some people - I have a grand total of 16 photos, which have been viewed 41 times at the time of writing - others have thousands and thousands of pictures).

A couple of friends of mine in NZ then left me some comments on a few pictures, and even added a couple to their collections of favourites (I am sure they were just being kind to me, to make me feel welcome)...  I added them as 'friends' and now I see their latest pictures on my page (as does anyone else that navigates to my page - I think).

Then, I got invited to join a group - OMG!  A new frenzy of activity started... as well as having my photos in my photostream, and categorised into sets, I could now share them with the group.  Then I found out that many groups are public, and don't actually need an invite for you to join them... Woohoo - so off I went on a search for other groups that might appreciate my pictures.  I think I've joined up with about half a dozen now, each specialising in something or other, from long-exposures and night time cityscapes, to anything taken with a Nikon D3000... (I also found one for the pics I took with my daughter's D40x before I got my own camera).

I'd been happily trundling along like this for a few days, when 'bang', another little surprise... someone found a picture I had posted just in my own photostream, by a search matching a tag I had given it.  I got a nice little note saying they would love to include my picture in their group's collection, and also inviting me to enter it in a competition they are running this month... well, hey! That suits me just fine :D

Yup - now I know why I tried to resist for so long... I haven't even had the account for a week yet, but I'm already checking my homepage at least 4 or 5 times a day to see if there are any more comments or messages, or if anyone has added my pictures to their 'faves' and so on.  And when there was a whole day with no new messages, I went off in search of new groups and new audiences to hang my wares in front of... Yes, I'm hooked good and proper.

If anyone's interested, I've added my flickr site to the list of links at the side of the blog - feel free to drop by and have a browse (it won't take you long - unless you get sidetracked into looking at the photos of my contacts as well, or the groups that I belong to - which after all, is the whole point of flickr - and facebook come to that - in the first place) and leave me some comments, or perhaps link me to YOUR flickr site.

Until the next time... (hopefully with some actual photos!)
G