Where is all the good photography on Flickr?

potlatch

“I went on to Flickr and it was just thousands of pieces of ****, and I just couldn’t believe it. And it’s just all conventional, it’s all cliches, it’s just one visual convention after another.”

Stephen Shore

Discuss.*







* I came across this again today and felt it could be a good discussion topic given some other threads doing the rounds.

Paulw

It's like anything else. If you look for quality, you'll find it.

Of course, you'll also find lots of average photos.

Any/all photo sharing sites are similar in that respect.

You have to sift through a lot of dirt to find a nugget of gold.

Ballyman

Jaysus man, you're not looking hard enough. My mother told me it's all here. Pass the word around

Morrisseeee

+1 to what Paulw has said........

......end of discussion ! :eek::p

KarmaGarda

Aye. Stephen Shores comment is a bit of a lazy mans remark. If you dig deep you'll find some gems.

Calina

potlatch wrote: »

Discuss.*







* I came across this again today and felt it could be a good discussion topic given some other threads doing the rounds.

Well in that case, it would be nice if you could, perhaps, have voiced an opinion of your own in the opening post.

However, with respect to "where is all the good photography on flickr", a lot depends on whether you see the site as being a democratic image sharing site in which case you'll get lots of family/holiday style snapshots, or an elitist showcase for artists. In reality, all it really is is a hosting package for images, and quality is optional.

That being said, it's used differently by lots of different people. For me, it was a joy because it allowed me to connect up with some very, very talented kitephotographers, it's allowed me to research all sorts of equipment questions. It allows me to see things in a different way. For off camera flash in a lot of ways it's been very useful.

Flickr is pretty much a state of mind. It's how you use it that matters, not how it uses you.

OctavarIan

Flickr is an image sharing tool, not a gallery of photographic exellence. Dunno where he got that impression in the first place. If you're looking for a more exclusive gallery with standards then you're best off at 1x.com or something similar.

elven

If you don't have any contacts already it's difficult to know where to start. If you have a penchant for a particular bit of gear it can be an interesting way to turn up some goodies - for example i was checking out polaroid stuff and found a beautiful shot from NY:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31166167@N07/3080881076/

Then I would go on to look at the rest of the owner's stream, then their own favourites, and maybe their favourites' favourites...

Also if you go to explore and reload a few times, quite often something interesting will actually pop up and it can lead you on the same path as above.

Calina

Yeah but i find 1x.com a bit hit and miss sometimes as well.

elven

ah yes, that site that only allows photographs that fit into their own aesthetic ideals. Way to foster creativity... i'd rather sift through a free for all for the good stuff than be force fed someone else's idea of 'excellence'...

as a quick aside, why are people being so defensive rather than pointing out how they find the good stuff, like the op asked?

Calina

Oh that bit.

I think of something I want to see, like "kitesurfing" and then I enter it in the search box for All photos. And then I look at what other people are doing.

DaireQuinlan

Find some photographer you like. Mark as contact. Check his/her favourites. Chances are the favourites will also include stuff that you like. Click through and investigate those photographers and their favourites. Rinse and repeat. The good stuff tends to cluster together.

Alternatively, check the non-lomo film groups.

DeVore

Let Stephen Shore do his own digging.... how am I supposed to know what he likes, I'd only be serving up what *I* like and you can see at least some of those in my sig :)


DeV.

trooney

potlatch wrote: »

Where is all the good photography on Flickr?

On Pix.ie

PaulieC

after googling binging him, I find myself thinking back to a thread a long time ago, where I caused a bit of a fuss by questioning Martin Parr's photography, who also said something similar of flickr.

I really detest these kinds of self-important w*nkers who, by making these kinds of statements, declare themselves to be above the general rabble that use flickr/pixie/photobucket/etc.

"deadpan banality" my backside. Just plain banality if you ask me.

I obviously haven't got the creative vision to appreciate his work :rolleyes:

Fajitas!

You could quite easily replace Flickr with the words "camera club" or "internet forum" and not be far from the truth. It'd be a much more interested debate too.

However, it's not exactly fair on Flickr, as it's never depicted itself as something good photography should be modelled on (for the reasons Shore mentions, and plenty more).

It's an easy, and quite a condescending, no, not condescending, erm... 'off' comment to come from someone as established and respected as Stephen Shore, particularly as his own work is quite integrated with the banal of society.

Calina

cambo_gueno wrote: »

after googling binging him, ...

this sounds almost...illicit....

who is the dude anyway? I couldn't even be bothered seeing if he was important or stuff?

Fajitas!

Calina wrote: »

who is the dude anyway? I couldn't even be bothered seeing if he was important or stuff?

You probably should.

I'll make it really easy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Shore

http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/stephen_shore_01.html

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Stephen+Shore&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

elven

it's kind of similar to say the same of their work, regardless of how famous they are, to write it off without knowing anything about it.

PaulieC

perhaps it is, but i am not the one making the comments in the first place.

potlatch

Fajitas! wrote: »

You could quite easily replace Flickr with the words "camera club" or "internet forum" and not be far from the truth. It'd be a much more interested debate too.

However, it's not exactly fair on Flickr, as it's never depicted itself as something good photography should be modelled on (for the reasons Shore mentions, and plenty more).

It's an easy, and quite a condescending, no, not condescending, erm... 'off' comment to come from someone as established and respected as Stephen Shore, particularly as his own work is quite integrated with the banal of society.

I did link back to the source of the comment, which links back to the original source. There, you'll find it was Shore's response to a specific question after a more general discussion/interview. So, sure, his comment is a bit unfair on Flickr. I agree, replace 'Flickr' with 'camera club', 'internet forum', whatever, and you probably have the same question.

Personally, I feel Flickr, and online methods for displaying and sharing photography generally, go both ways. I love the democratic aspect of it and it changes nothing in photography - since its invention, there have always been more crap photos than good ones. I absolutely agree that each user, and online community of users, can employ Flickr for their own uses and these are all equally valid. But Flickr and other such methods of showing photos do function in specific ways that cause certain patterns in terms of how photos cluster in terms of subject matter, style, technology. Then there's the social aspect. I'm sure in a camera club, this happens just as much. Flickr opens up and restricts as much as a camera club or internet forum does.

There's also a certain gravitational pull to Flickr and other similar sites; I've often thought of packing in Flickr and only displaying my photography on my rudimentary website or, as Shore once experimented with, on PDF only, but I haven't brought myself to packing it in. Flickr does influence the meaning of photos by its very nature.

From personal experience (and I don't have many Flickr contacts), I've found a few of my favourite photographers via Flickr, and, strangely, as I followed them over the years they've become widely known as promising new photographers. I found them and liked them out of feeling an affinity for their photographies.

What does amuse and infuriate me from time to time is how, in my view, the most popular photos are generally the worst and the best, the least popular. Popularity is not the point. And it's the case that unpopular photos are never the easiest to find.

elven

What he said.

I doubt there's any point in going over old ground again - but there is the point of the mediocrity of the masses. What's popular isn't really a very reliable indicator of what's quality.

sheesh

potlatch wrote: »

Discuss.*

OK

Flickr is probably one of the biggest photo sharing site on the internet. some people literally dump every image they have on it skimming through flickr and complaining that there are no fantastic images is like taking a random sample of women from the general population and complaining that they all don't look like supermodels.

real talent is rare.


If I had some truly fantastic photography I wouldn't be putting it all on flickr.

given the size of flickr if you cannot find anything good on it you probably have not looked hard enough.

given the size of flickr if you cannot find anything good on it maybe the problem is you.

Maybe it is all cliches and rule following (there are lots of it up there) but thats ok learning photography is a process you must learn the rules before you can break them.
you should do the standards. like portrait, landscape, Fashion, street and all the other types. just because something has been done a million times before does not meant I should not do it and learn how to do it well.

Is it so wrong to like sunsets?

or for that matter swans?

m0rt

There are a few tightly curated groups on Flickr that I follow and the standard is generally very high.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/yousuck/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lfa/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/landscapist/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/highandlow/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/streetsilver/

Eirebear

I'm sure this discussion has been done over and over again around these parts in other shapes and forms.
Shore's comments seem a little bit pointless to me in all fairness, or course flickr is full of banal, boring, cliched work.
A quick look at the Flickr homepage tells me this:
"There were 6,586 uploads in the last minute"

Its a mass storage facility for the whole world's images. The majority of people on Flickr are general members of the public, who have an interest in photographs.
An interest in photographs. Not a "serious enthusiasm", not even a serious interest in photography.
Simply that they like to fire off a few shots and show them to friends.

Take out those people and you are left with a core of "enthusiasts", students and the odd pro.
There are millions of these people around the world at the moment. Just as there are millions of club and pub singers, millions of amateur sports players.
All of them harbour dreams and ambitions, but how man of these sporting types, singers or photographers truly have the talent to rise above it all and become "great" (eek! )

Like all things in life, very few people have true originality or style, so they follow fashions and trends. HDR, oversaturation, Infra-Red filters are all examples of recent trends evident from Flickr.

However, does it really matter? VI have never seen/heard any of these people claim to be great photographers. Just as i have never heard anyone tell me to look at Flickr if i want to see great photography.
So why does Shore feel the need to comment on it?

As a photographer, i like Shore in small doses. Sometimes i think his work is a little hit and miss, but given his subject matter i suppose that is almost part of it.

However how many of his images would stand up to C&C if posted anonymously on a forum like this one?
Is that down to a matter of changing tastes, or a case of the masses following fashions?

DeVore

Given that Flickr is the worlds biggest repository of photographs ... is it really so surprising that its average picture is, well... average?

DeV.

Corkfeen

Theres plenty of good photos on flickr, i've found fantastic photos while exploring the various groups. You'll always get mixed results with millions of members.

LimeFruitGum

Well, I just use it as an online photo album. So yes, a lot of mine are just going to be bog-standard tourist pics or of our dog or whatever. The way I see it, it is my account for which I pay good money, and I'll stick pics of the dog up if I want to :-)

m0rt

cambo_gueno wrote: »

"deadpan banality" my backside. Just plain banality if you ask me.

I'd recommend reserving judgement until you've leafed through a copy of Uncommon Places. Seriously, Google images doesn't quite have the same impact.

AnCatDubh

What the heck is good anyway?

Princeton definition - "having desirable or positive qualities especially those suitable for a thing specified;"

"Good" is subjective. Cue corny movie line "Greed is Good" (Gekko, Gordon; Wallstreet; 1987) - but probably not so bloody good if you are the poor soul who is living below the dollar a day thing.

Switch to debate over school images and realisation that bebo/facebook images are what the world of photography is judged by ie. any horse can take a photo (damn camera engineers - give them a pinhole I say, then they'll appreciate good photography). But if bebo and facebook are the way the world views current photography then the term 'peeing again the wind' comes to mind when it comes to seeking where the good photographs are on flickr because good photographs are thus everywhere (even those taken by the horse).

/end ramblings

Eirebear

Wait a minute....so your saying that because a horse knows how to set up a Bebo profile, then that makes them a good photographer?

I reckon you've been at the Red Rum this evening fella!

Borderfox

I would agree with Flickr being a bit hit and miss but as said above its for some people a storage facility for all their shots good and bad. I do see some really nice stuff in there but altogether there is too much of the yanks kissing each others *sses.

I had a look at some of Stephen Shores stuff and I cant say that I get it, looks like to me that he sent the child out with a p&s and said click away. I took a dislike to Martin Parr after that God awful photography competition show on CH4.

RCNPhotos

Search for Cardiff at night, can't recall the guys name but I really like his stuff, he won a big hoo hah prize on flickr recently I believe.

Fajitas!

RCNPhotos wrote: »

Search for Cardiff at night, can't recall the guys name but I really like his stuff, he won a big hoo hah prize on flickr recently I believe.

Was it a really big .Gif file? :pac:

Shore's images were quite huge in that the both introduced the banal, real America to the world in colour, and kept a record of that era. They're also incredibly well considered, but it takes more than a glance to go through them tbh. Most of his photographs are shot on large format, and are incredible when seen in the print.

Valentia

Has Mr. Shore a Flickr account?

I think it is a silly thing to say. Flickr (and Pixie for that matter) make no claims other than being a storage and sharing facility. There are some great shots in there though. Rummaging around to find them is part of the fun.

Valentia

Fajitas! wrote: »

Most of his photographs are shot on large format, and are incredible when seen in the print.

Ah yes the ol' size versus content argument....;)

Fajitas!

Who said they were huge?

Valentia

Fajitas! wrote: »

Who said they were huge?

I assumed :rolleyes: They're not so?

Fajitas!

Some are bigger than others, others arn't!

They're really nice photographs in print

Freddie59

Honestly, I really don't understand the petty snobbery that some people attach to photography. Yes, there are people who are brilliant at it. Then there are people like me who, while not being very good, just enjoy it and see it as a nice recreational hobby and a learning experience.

And as for Flickr, it's brilliant. You get to see places through the eyes of others, and the whole thing is thoroughly entertaining. It is sad to see some people look down their lenses;) at others. Here in Waterford we'd call it a penny looking down on two ha'pennies.

Just enjoy it folks. And if you ARE blessed to be one of the really good ones.....just be grateful for that gift from on high.:)

Freddie59

AnCatDubh wrote: »

What the heck is good anyway?

Precisely - and from who's perspective?

dinneenp

I think to see the best photos goto anybodys profile and then look at their favorites.

Obviously they'll depend on the person....
here's my favs anyway

Paulw

I hope this is ok.

I was noticed a boards poster Flickr link, and decided to check the photos.

Wow, I think the images are stunning. Well worth a look.

The user on boards is squareballoon and the FlickR link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/moments_photography/