is flickr just a giant circle jerk?

[HGMonaro]

Originally Posted by Igilligan

I mean really wtf is this? It looks like a sensor failure!

looks like light filtering thru something. I would take that photo (with B&W film and printed dark with lots of contrast).

[Arpe]

I get lost looking through Flickr, so haven't joined. Its navigation is abominable.

[jmbradd]

I always hear this and then I check my flickr and see that I have 0 comments and then I cry

[jct us101]

Join a DMU and you'll love Flickr.

**** Utata.

[Gruoso]

Welcome back Cody!

[LSPhotography]

I will have to say gooshin put it best, with the everyone pats everyone on the back statement. I will have to say though that that exact reason is why im happy im attending college for my photo degree, you get honest feedback from both student photographers, and teachers who used to be working professionals. I would have to say i have advanced very quickly thanks to school and having people be brutally honest with what i have. This site at times has also led itself to some pretty good critiques.

[johnmflores]

Originally Posted by séamuis

I use flickr as an image dump basically. the reason I dont really post my photographs is because I generally dont want anyones CC. I photograph in a certain way. I have a certain way of doing things, to achieve the look I like. I dont think I have ever taken a photograph that can be considered "technically correct" yet the few times I posted photos here I got nothing but hounding for how my picture wasnt "proper". too many photographers nowadays are just in it to make money and only concern themselves with the technical details. its dying as a true art form in my opinion. and I dont want my work subjected to the technical nazis. back to flickr.... the community is a nice aspect, but like deviantart, it overcrowded with young folks, so its not really my community.

you be a fool for ever thinking flickr was a "serious" photography community ping. I pity da fool.

but take your pick. gold stars and unicorns, or "this photo is a good start, but..." from a million different internet super photographers who know everything there is to know about knowing stuff.

personally, Ill take the unicorns.

This round of unicorns and beer is on me!



Seriously, Flickr is so big at this point that universal statement like "it sucks" or "it's awesome" won't work. There are some very good photographers out there, and a lot of bad and average ones as well. It's like the million monkeys theorem - get a million average photographers and they are likely to take some good photos.

There was a great post on TOP from Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai the other day. Here it is. Some of my favorites from the post:

"Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically. You cannot build your sense of aesthetics on a consensus."

"...Excellent technique is a great tool, but a terrible end product. The best thing your technique can do is not call attention to itself. Never let your technique upstage your subject."

So good luck with pursuing your vision. Too many are focused on technique.

No back to the unicorns!

[alohadave]

Originally Posted by Gooshin

please read the first sentence of my second paragraph of the post that you quoted

thanks for playing!

Which one? The one that says that you believe that any photo posted warrants comments?

I'd still delete your comment and block you whether you think your comment is justified or not. If you don't like the picture, move on. If you are critiquing random pictures that aren't requesting critique, you deserve to get flamed by people.

[lithos]

Originally Posted by Gooshin

however as i have been burned in the past, i stopped bothering commenting on garbage photos all together, because if i did, i would probably surpass Gary's post count by now. Its a double standard, someone posts a poorly composed or bland photo of their newborn, and anyone telling them "dude thats a bad photo" is all of a sudden the worlds biggest dickweed, but give the person praise and you're accepted into the group. Now the dumbass that took the photo thinks he's doing well, so he posts another halfass photo of his newborn, and the cycle continues. Then the same genius decides that his photography is so amazing he could make something out of it. So he starts advertising his services. Quickly he realizes that something is wrong, because people are complaining to him and not paying up, so he gives up on the idea. Only the seed has been planted. His disgruntled customers now think every photographer is a hack, and try to take pictures themselves with that DSLR they got for christmass from some random relative. They join an online forum and post shitty pictures of their chairs and again, get the same "amazing photo" comments... see where i'm going with this?

You've correctly described the Cycle Of Crap.

I left my last university course because it had the whole new-age crap teaching ideas. Say something nice! Everyone's work has some merit! When we ask for your opinion, we really mean Your Opinion - the sugar-coated, tied-up-with-a-pretty-red-ribbon version with a cherry on top! That, and since it was a lazy (ie, "peer-reviewed" - meaning that your classmates marked you instead of the teachers) marking method, if you said something bad about a someone else's work, then they'd say something bad about yours.

Flickr's aimed at Generation Y, and that's what most of my generation have been raised on, a steady diet of positive reinforcement, high in mental carbohydrates and low in psychological fibre, which, unfortunately, leads to overconfidence, and the valuation of "the journey" instead of "the destination;" that it doesn't matter what the outcome is, at least you tried. It's probably a knee-jerk reaction to rising litigation in the 90s, and the theory of emotional intelligence ("your kid's as dumb as a box of hammers...but - BUT! - he plays well with others...pleasedon'tsueme") where parents would get extremely tetchy when teachers had to explain exactly why little Janey got a D in history.

[Gooshin]

Originally Posted by alohadave

Which one? The one that says that you believe that any photo posted warrants comments?

I'd still delete your comment and block you whether you think your comment is justified or not. If you don't like the picture, move on. If you are critiquing random pictures that aren't requesting critique, you deserve to get flamed by people.

"however as i have been burned in the past, i stopped bothering commenting on garbage photos all together, because if i did, i would probably surpass Gary's post count by now."

now go away.

[Ash]

True that, lithos.

Tough love never meant to hurt anyone - but malice is never constructive.
"Get a hide", "HTFU" and "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" are more of a 'push you down to make me feel better about myself' attitude than anything else IMO.

I'd say we're in agreement, but there is a way to tell the honest truth respectfully.

[figmental1978]

and here I am trawling my pro flickr account which needs to be cleaned up by tagging, adding photos to sets and groups, etc and realising how ugly and desperate flickr is. unfortunately, I have all my blog photos stored on flickr so looks like flickr and I have a few more years to go...hopefully they clean the UI and users so it can be about photos again.

[flippedgazelle]

Maybe the problem is that people believe what they read on the Internet...

[jsherman999]

I only use flickr to host my photos - I actually think the compression algorithm they use is one of the best out there.

I've only participated once in any kind of 'group discussion' there, and that's because a search I did found a guy in Duluth advertising a Vivitar S1 105 2.8 macro, and he was posting the 'ad' in a flickr group.

Had a little chat with him, a Viv 105 arrived in the mail a few days later. About 10 months or so after that he emailed me asking if I wanted to sell it back to him (no)

[yeatzee]

just as an FYI Alfisti, the links you have there aren't working for me. I was able to see the first for a split second though and agree it definitely is not "good enough" (IMO) to be in Pentax's official gallery. I've seen a lot of mediocre shots in the PPG, but I still feel great getting one in though