[BruceBanner]

My first SOOC in Explore;

[baro-nite]

This one was not SOOC

[pepperberry farm]

[stevebrot]

That's what I get for actually posting stuff up to Flickr...I get Explored!

First Rays


Pentax K-3, Auto Rikenon 55/1.4 (M42)

No...not SOOC, but no Photoshop either.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Today, 1st April 2019, I celebrated my 4,494th Explore, according to Scout. Below is an un-doctored screen shot from Scout - it made me laugh at least.

---------- Post added 04-01-19 at 10:44 AM ----------

...and here is my second to last Explore. Taken with a Helios 40 and K-1.

Wow! Moonlandings and all! I am so very humbled.


Steve

[zubzubadoodle]

This one went into explore at the weekend.

[utak]

Wow! Moonlandings and all! I am so very humbled.

LOL. That moonlanding shot - taken with a small plastic figure, self-raising flour and iPhone lighting - sat at number 7 on Explore for most of the day. Posted as a joke for a Macro theme group, it ended up by far my highest placing...

[Weevil]

LOL. That moonlanding shot - taken with a small plastic figure, self-raising flour and iPhone lighting - sat at number 7 on Explore for most of the day. Posted as a joke for a Macro theme group, it ended up by far my highest placing...

Photos in context of the actuality / news are always a winner for Explore!
Congrats!

[baro-nite]

Detail of Horsetail Fall, Yosemite National Park

[normhead]

The very first image I posted on flickr, which was my very first K-1 Pixel shift test image, was explored. Nothing since.


If we put 70 Pentax shooters together, each of us selected one of their images and the others all faved it, there'd be 70 Pentax images in flickr explore that day. As far as I can tell, it's all about how many people "fav" your images.

I've posted many images of my border collies better than the one linked to below, none were explored. For some reason, the one in the link has 67 "favs" and was "explored."
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/32781982727_a7a7e08ea2_h.jpg

If flickr was a person sitting in front of me I'd be saying "I see what you're doing here."
What's amazing to me is that some of us (not me) get onto flickr explore without having thousands of followers and actually getting faved by less than 1% of the people who view the image, or a group of followers who fav images for reasons other than image quality.

[Rondec]

The very first image I posted on flickr, which was my very first K-1 Pixel shift test image, was explored. Nothing since.


If we put 70 Pentax shooters together, each of us selected one of their images and the others all faved it, there'd be 70 Pentax images in flickr explore that day. As far as I can tell, it's all about how many people "fav" your images.

I've posted many images of my border collies better than the one linked to below, none were explored. For some reason, the one in the link has 67 "favs" and was "explored."
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/32781982727_a7a7e08ea2_h.jpg

If flickr was a person sitting in front of me I'd be saying "I see what you're doing here."
What's amazing to me is that some of us (not me) get onto flickr explore without having thousands of followers and actually getting faved by less than 1% of the people who view the image, or a group of followers who fav images for reasons other than image quality.

It isn't quite that simple. I think Flickr has change their algorithm since they started charging people and skew it towards "pro" users. I don't really spend a whole lot of time on Flickr but I'm getting about one a month now. I still think they are pretty random in what they select. Not necessarily the photos of mine I like the best, but it isn't a big deal either (faves on Flickr definitely don't mean you are a good photographer).

These two got in in the last couple of months...

Monticello



Sunrise (DA 15/K-01)

[normhead]

It isn't quite that simple. I think Flickr has change their algorithm since they started charging people and skew it towards "pro" users. I don't really spend a whole lot of time on Flickr but I'm getting about one a month now. I still think they are pretty random in what they select. Not necessarily the photos of mine I like the best, but it isn't a big deal either (faves on Flickr definitely don't mean you are a good photographer).

These two got in in the last couple of months...

Monticello



Sunrise (DA 15/K-01)

Did you see the border collie image I linked to... what kind of algorithm could possibly get that one on explore? Bad light, blown highlights, black splotch shadows, if I were still teaching I might put it up soon the screen and tell my students if they ever brought me an image like that they would automatically fail. But, it has 67 likes and it's on explore. I rest my case.

You have 225 followers and 91 favs for that image, but over 4000 views, it has to be people searching on Monticello. In any case, you're killing it. My favourite Vincent image has 13 favs and it's not on explore.

It reminds me of my images that got 700,000 views on photobucket. The title of the series was "Opalescent Sunset" because they were of a sunset on a lake called Opalescent Lake in Algonquin Park. There was a European band called Opalescent Sunset. You never know.

In any case, if we can get 70 people to test my theory with flickr accounts, we can run a test.

[Larrymc]

Did you see the border collie image I linked to... what kind of algorithm could possibly get that one on explore? Bad light, blown highlights, black splotch shadows, if I were still teaching I might put it up soon the screen and tell my students if they ever brought me an image like that they would automatically fail. But, it has 67 likes and it's on explore. I rest my case.

You have 225 followers and 91 favs for that image, but over 4000 views, it has to be people searching on Monticello. In any case, you're killing it. My favourite Vincent image has 13 favs and it's not on explore.

It reminds me of my images that got 700,000 views on photobucket. The title of the series was "Opalescent Sunset" because they were of a sunset on a lake called Opalescent Lake in Algonquin Park. There was a European band called Opalescent Sunset. You never know.

In any case, if we can get 70 people to test my theory with flickr accounts, we can run a test.

Norm, I can tell you right now your theory doesn't work. The photos of mine that have made Explore have had the faves come after the photo was added to Explore from Flickr members all over the world, not from prior faves. I've never been able to figure how any of my photos make it into Explore, I've got 14 there now. It has nothing to do with how many followers you have either nor the amount of views. Its a head scratcher??

[edom31]

It isn't quite that simple. I think Flickr has change their algorithm since they started charging people and skew it towards "pro" users. I don't really spend a whole lot of time on Flickr but I'm getting about one a month now. I still think they are pretty random in what they select. Not necessarily the photos of mine I like the best, but it isn't a big deal either (faves on Flickr definitely don't mean you are a good photographer).

These two got in in the last couple of months...

Monticello

I'm on an Explore drought... honestly my favorite shots do not get Explored, just random ones which seem "interesting" but not necesarily artistic or the such.

FYI - that second shot is amazing, glad it made it to Explore... I sometimes see shots that are, well, not to my taste.

[normhead]

Norm, I can tell you right now your theory doesn't work. The photos of mine that have made Explore have had the faves come after the photo was added to Flickr from Flickr members all over the world, not from prior faves. I've never been able to figure how any of my photos make it into Explore, I've got 14 there now. It has nothing to do with how many followers you have either nor the amount of views. Its a head scratcher??

Interesting.... but inconclusive for a number or reasons. The fact that you get favs after, doesn't necessarily mean you didn't have to have a certain number of favs, views or whatever before to get listed on explore. So say the number required is 15 or 10 or something. And then people pile on afterwards. One on explore now, the Leopard cub has 16 favs, it would be interesting to find it in day or two, and see how much that's bumped up.

The big question here would be have any images ever been posted in explore with no favs. Or with say less than 10.
I have 14 images that have actually been displayed in the PPG after having been voted in. All of those images are posted on flickr. Most of them have less than 20 views and no favs.

The only part of my theory cast into doubt at the moment is the number of favs needed to get in. But maybe I just need more info.

But I'm really curious, given the million photos submitted a day, what possible scenario can you come up with that could be used as a selction process?

Time to call on Occam's razor.

Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the least speculation is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation.

I'm open to suggestion here. I have 14 out of 15 accepted on PPG. Have 1 of 3500 accepted in explore. Just looking for explanations. And honestly, flicker has some magic unknown algorithm that selects from the million images submitted a day based on some principles no one can understand , seems highly unlikely

The idea that Explore is not making use of the "stats" flickr collects is also highly unlikely.

Good enough for the PPG where we know what the process is (people vote on them, thumbs up or thumbs down) , less than 10 views for most of them on flickr no favs, and not explored.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/149541448@N08/albums/72157678609082288
https://pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/normhead