Type in a tag, click “play”, and you will be served up 20 random flickr photos, displayed each for 20 seconds. The idea is to have people practice the art of improv to a set of never before seen images, and try to make sense of it.

I owe the idea to Giulia Forsyth, who days before 2011 Northern Voice tweeted me asking if there was some way to make Five Card Flickr do something like this. My first, lame response was going to be:

Yeah, do 5 Card flickr 4 times ;-)

But I thought this might be fun to do. My first round was a build off of the same code that I wrote for 5 Card Flickr, because all of the image data for the tags read in are stored locally in my database (the site pulls in the flickr id for a photo needed to generate a size of an image via the API).

That was not hard, after tapping into a jquery library for slide shows, jquery cycle, which is amazing for what it provides to create a variety of web-based slideshows. But it seemed limiting to use only the tags defined for my other site.

So I pressed rewind, and just wrote something from scratch, using the same phpflickr library to work with the flickr API. In this version, I use the API to pull up the 200 most recent photos with the tag into an array, and then use array_rand() to grab 20 random from among those, which are then served up by the jquery cycle gig.

I found that the first image in the set loaded a bit slowly, so I made the first slide an intro/explanation/teaser image I pre-created (I have five of them, so you get a random one each time).

The images are then displayed 20 seconds at a time, with a counter on the left- here is an example using tyhe tag “dog” (is there another tag worth doing?)

I did a demo of this at a Moosecamp session for Northern Voice, and people seemed to like it.

After I can do some tweaking of the layout and fish for feedback, I will post the code for it. Some things that people asked for included:

• An ability on the front to select the duration for slides to appear (it is fixed at 20 seconds, but this could be a menu option).
• An ability to change the number of slides (maybe a mini pecha, say 10 slides?)
• A clock on the screen (I am against the idea, it does not meet with the concept, but that is just me)
• Perhaps a way fo presetting some “easy”, ‘medium”, “hard” settings to set the challenge level

No promises I will do any of this, but I will at least share the code soon.

But this was fun to make!

Give it a play at http://lab.cogdogblog.com/pechaflickr/

How could I not try that? It was about 2 minutes to authenticate and set up, though you have to wait until they notify you that it is ready.

Here is mine-

It’s a bit mesmerizing, well maybe, Perhaps it is boring. But how much easier could it be to make a video of your flickr photos? I know people sit down and make a video of a year’s worth, but you can do it here in a few clicks (you can also select a set to make a movie from).

Sure, some of you want your title sequences and custom music, but if you can live with what pummelvision makes, you can save a ton of time.

I’ve milked this story plenty of times before- during a 2007 workshop in Tasmania, I used as an example of the power of unexpected connections, someone the year before had commented on a flickr photo I had tagged as “unknown” and told me the kind of flower it was– what was amazing was the woman who did this was in the workshop (here I am telling it again in video, where you will here about 20 times the word “amazing”.)

This just happened again today- out of the blue, un-asked for (and not even tagged or captioned with a request to help learn about the subject), flickr user “Sculpture Kris” added a comment to this photo of a sculpture I saw in Rochester, Minnesota.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

telling me a lot more about “Boy on a Dolphin” then I knew before:

And ironically, there was a previous work by the artist, Girl with a Dolphin in London, that I bet I walked right past when I visited the London Tower Bridge in August.

Now this is really tiny, this is not open education or anything that will Reform Education as We Know It, but I am (flipping through thesaurus for some other word than “amazing”)… astounded that people may seek out photos in flickr of things they have information on, and share them like this. Sculpture Kris did more than just comment, he/she researched the other photos on flickr, and added the Youtube video of another version of the Boy/Dolphin sculpture elsewhere in London (tactfully in front of a Mercedes Benz dealership?)

which then leads via related videos to a clip of a movie with Sophia Loren (and if you go further you are deep down a line of tangents that I am not taking responsibility for).

But back to this example- perhaps this could be an interesting exercise for classes learning about Web 2.0 tech / social media? Seek a shared piece of media posted in a site like flickr in a topic area that you know or are interested in, do some research to share some information, and post it as a comment. Comment some learning forward?

I have someone who regularly mines my flickr stream for photos that he posts to WikiPedia articles he helps author, and always lets me know when it is used; I end up reading the article, and damn if I end up learning something new. Again.

So I will use the “A” word again. Among the river of social media and the crap that comes across our TV news– we can use a whole lot more Amazing Stories (my self plugs for 2009 and 2010 versions of Amazing Stories of Sharing).

They are small things to do, yet powerful… and contagious.

Thanks Sculpture Kris, for the spark of my day.

It was back in late 2006 I switched my flickr photo creative commons license to the simple, and sharable, by attribution license. I said then:

So I am considering, pondering, swaying that the most free, is the simple BY Attribution license, and until someone strongly can compel me backward, have switched this on my blog and my flickr collections.

I now have been strongly compelled, by Alec Corous’ recent post on Considering CC-Non Commercial. Alec does have a new Amazing Story where his video of him helping his daugher learn to ride a bicycle was found, and licensed by Nokia to be part of a new commercial.

Not just part- it is the crowning last segment in a montage, the one the closes the deal on the commercial’s message- check it our yourself http://stalkr.tv/Media/Nokia.mp4.

The thing is that his use of the BY-NC creative commons license (it can be used in any work if someone provides attributiona nd it is for non-commercial work.

The key here is that this license does not preven commercial use of Alec’s media- it just means someone wishing to gain from a commercial use, they have to seek permission from Alec (and likely compensate him, as what happened with his video). Again, if someone wants to use his video for monetary gain, they need to pay or get approval from the copyright holder; but for everyone else, they can still freely use it without needing to seek permissions.

As Stephen Downes notes in a comment ion Alec’s post

Basically, what the NC provision says is that, if they make money, I make money, and they they don’t make money, I don’t make money. Nice, reciprocal, and fair.

This is not about dreaming of profiteering from sales of my flickr media, and any dreams I have of that are most definitely a fantasy.

So I just flipped my default flickr license in past and future photos to BY-NC. One downside I have noted is that a frequent flickr contact who has harvested a number of my CC flickr photos for WikiPedia articles, tells me that Wikipedia will not accept BY-NC licensed photos. I cannot find the rationale, but I’m willing to flip an image back to BY when Pete asks.

Bye Bye BY!

I’m just a little pup on the web. A one dog show. I’ve got no ads on my blog, no sponsors, no income here. I pay for everything myself.

But I sure as hell take the steps to provide attribution credit for images I use here. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the right behavior to model. It’s the golden rule. It’s easy.

Perhaps if you are an outfit like GigaOM you don’t have to bother with such trivial annoyances.

Tonight I came across their post on Open vs. Closed: In the Ongoing Battle Over Control, How Much Is Too Much? and right away I recognized the left side photo in the collage they used:

or you can find directly on their site at http://gigaom.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/open-vs-closed.jpg

I recognized that one right away as a creative commons one I’ve seen pop up on searches I have done before. Sure enough, one 15 second dip into CompFight, do a creative commons tag search on “road horizon clouds” and its the first one up– in fact here it is:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Stuck in Customs

Wow, there I go attributing again. I cannot help it.

So I went back to the GigaOM article and scoured the post looking for credit. Nothing. No link, no text credit. This seems to be at odds over the BY NC SA license on the source flickr photo.

GigaOm has provided neither attribution nor is it sharing in a like manner. It would have been easier to find if I had used TinEye (AMAZING tool) :

The blue lock is more elusive- I could not locate it in TinEye or flickr. Who knows where it came from? Is it licensed? Was it found on Google Images? You cannot tell.

So maybe it was just an oversight. I’ve made bigger mistakes myself. I informally scanned 15 GigaOM posts and found maybe 60% did have an attribution at the bottom of the article. But quite a lot do not.

Maybe I am nitpicking, but if me as a solitary little blogger can manage to attribute every photo I use, I expect a little better from the big dogs.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by claudiogennari

I’m warning you, world, attribute like a good citizen, or be wary for a dog looking over your shoulder!

If you had not played with this before, the initial description tells it all:

I’ve been ultra interested in the idea of telling stories in pictures. Ever since I saw Ruben Puentadora’s workshop on web comics back in 2007 (and later at the 2008 NMC Summer Conference) a little idea has been brewing. Ruben does this fantastic group activity based on work from Scott McCloud, that makes creative work, from all things, of old Nancy cartoons. Using the Five-Card Nancy web version of Scott’s original card game, Ruben conducts an exercise in visual story weaving.

Basically, you get a shuffled deck of five panels from different Nancy cartoons, and you have to pick one at a time to, in five steps, produce a coherent story, or at least die laughing trying. The point is to make connections and discuss the reasons for the choice.

The idea that has been brewing is to create a web tool that works the same, but rather than drawing from a pool of Nancy cartoons (no offense to the Nancy-holics), draw from a pool of images, say in flickr– this is different slightly from the Flickr Tell a Story in 5 Frames, but presents another way of facing the challenge of telling a story in images only.

The problem with that version was the part of it that fetched flickr images with a given tag was built on some code that a tweet out got a solution from John Krutsch. While this worked, the logic was based on parsing the results display of a flickr search, and when flickr changed the output of their search last August, my code went up in a puff of smoke.

I knew that what I needed to do was to do it the right way, via the flickr API. Fortunately, I had some experience and used before the phpFlickr code library, and a few months ago I got a portion of the code redone, but left it on the shelf too long.

One task was to redesign the database a little more compact fashion and to do away with so much dependence on writable text files to store data (I was trying to be nice to the flickr API and store a local array of found photos). I also wanted to try and preserve all the bits that had been created before, so I had a few rounds of running some custom code to move and update the database.

So now the story creation parts al work again, and any photos you tag as 5cardflickr should be added to the pool (note that I poll flickr only once an hour to look for new photos).

I’d like to test it a bit before updating the google code site, but when I get the code, there, it should be easier to set up than before.

Try it now, tell a in 5 flickr photo…. http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/play.php

Let’s say you were marooned on the apocryphal desert island that was equipped with a broadband internet connection limited to accessing one web site, what would it be?

Well maybe that is not the question I was framing- most people might claim email or twitter, maybe even (eww) facebook (“status- just cracked a coconut!”) or something with two way video (you survivalists, you, want to stay in touch).

No, I am thinking, if you were limited to one Web 2.0 tool, what would it be?

That’s easy for me- hands down, its the site that spawned a million ideas, experiments, hobby time hours for me– nothing more typifies the experience to me than good old flickr. I’ve sometimes thought of building an entire web 2.0 presentation (not that I do web 2.0 presentations) around flickr.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by The Eggplant

What warmed the fires again this morning was getting a notice that a photo of mine was added to someone’s flickr gallery. a flickr user, kellypuffs, has a excellent set of images (not just because mine is in there, I like the others better) called presentation zen:

This was a feature pretty quietly added a few months ago- I was floored and wrote it as Be a Curator with Flickr Galleries. It is about turning the photo sharing experience from organizing your own photos, to a way of making collections of other people’s photos.

That seems powerful.

What is a flickr gallery?

For whatever you find interesting, fascinating, or mind-blowing on Flickr, galleries are a way to curate up to 18 public photos or videos of your fellow members into one place. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the creativity of your fellow members in a truly unique way around a theme, an idea or just because.

You create a gallery on what ever interests you, scour flickr for other photos people allow to be shared, add them to your gallery, even add your own “wall” label of annotation. You can nly add a maximum of 18 photos, so there is that interesting bit of not just tossing lots of photos into a bin, but picking the best or most interesting (to the gallery owner)

What is also nice for making you look beyond your own spiffy photos is– you cannot add your own photos to your gallery; it is all about showcasing other people’s work.

If I was teaching, I would be all over this as an assignment perhaps in photography or design to have students find photos with certain elements, or for other classes to have students build a gallery of themes (photos of Spain, illustrations of natural patterns, photos of emotions?) – so there is the search and find aspect, but also the piece where the gallery own describes their gallery and why they added the photos.

Are there any teachers out there using flickr galleries? I found it limited to be able to search for examples since I get things related to flickr gallery software, or “galleries’ (just a set of flickr photos) people put on their site.

I don’t think you get email notices of when someone uses your photos, but you can track it in your activity stream (which does have an RSS feed,a nd oh yes, an email notifier link at the bottom).

There is also a private link only a flickr account holder can view to see where your own photos have been used in other people’s galleries- Galleries with your photos is found in URLs like:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xxxxxx/galleries/in/

where “xxxxx” is your flickr id e.g. mine is

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/galleries/in/

Maybe it is just me, and I always thought flickr image annotating was amazing, but I think flickr galleries are the dog’s pajamas.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by c.

I might just have to make a few more with something other than dogs.

Anyone else out there as jazzed by this?

I always provide links back to the source as attribution for the flickr creative commons photos I use. Today I ran into the not so surprising case of wondering what to do, and what the ramifications for, if the original is no longer there?

Here’s the case. A dark night in a web that knows how to keep its secrets, but one dog is still trying to find the answers to life’s persistent questions. Me.

Oops, wrong story.

I was working on a site which has a banner collage made of 5 or 6 flickr cc licensed images. When I did the original, I downloaded them in 500px size (I keep the original cryptic file names, like “196478990_e68fe3c25a.jpg”). I also, and I wish I could say always, kept a text file with the credits info.

In making a credits page on the new site, I reached for my favorite tool, yep, the one I did myself, the Flickr CC Attribution Helper for Greasemonkey – a Firefox script that nicely inserts two kinds of copiable attribution strings right in the flickr page (only if it is cc licensed):

Now frankly I think this is best thing since

cc licensed flickr photo shared by mattburns.co.uk

Look! I just used it! Again.

I digress.

So I was going to use this as my usual way of attribution for flickr cc content.

Except, one photo came up with the message at the top; I guess the owner of the flickr account skipped town and closed down the account. Or make up any other story. Got hit by a meteorite. Killed their account in protest of not getting enough attribution (I was late again!).

But I got thinking, what happens then to the right to use it if the original is gone? And what would I link to as attribution?

I tweeted before really thinking…

Plenty of people reminded me that it was there in the license (doh) the legal-verbiage-I-click-without-reading, section “7b Termination”

Subject to the above terms and conditions, the license granted here is perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright in the Work). Notwithstanding the above, Licensor reserves the right to release the Work under different license terms or to stop distributing the Work at any time; provided, however that any such election will not serve to withdraw this License (or any other license that has been, or is required to be, granted under the terms of this License), and this License will continue in full force and effect unless terminated as stated above.

So once something is released into Creative Commons, it is there forever under the terms you originally got it, even if the original goes away, or the owner changes their mind. The only “termination” is if the user (me) does something to breach the terms of the license, like using something commercially when it is NC (??) or making jokes about lawyers.

Or even more clearly, in the Creative commons FAQ:

What if I change my mind?
Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable. This means that you cannot stop someone, who has obtained your work under a Creative Commons license, from using the work according to that license. You can stop distributing your work under a Creative Commons license at any time you wish; but this will not withdraw any copies of your work that already exist under a Creative Commons license from circulation, be they verbatim copies, copies included in collective works and/or adaptations of your work. So you need to think carefully when choosing a Creative Commons license to make sure that you are happy for people to be using your work consistent with the terms of the license, even if you later stop distributing your work.

,

And an even bigger “doh” for me because I can still provide attribution by photo credit (in text) without doing a link back. I am so hunk up on links and linktribution that anything else feels weak.

So my original record keeping works, in those days, before my cool as bread Greasemonkey script, I would keep text file logs (which was tedious, about a 4 trip copy/paste routine from web page to text file)

2572694217_200b3646af.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19353461@N04/2572694217/
scimanal

Where the first line is the file name I saved it, the second the link, and the third the flickr owner’s name.

So thanks “scimanal” for the photo, where-ever you are.

On a related front, as a number of people are hopping off of Firefox for Chrome, I’ll have to bone up on Chrome’s extensions. But, a neat discovery I found was a way to enable Greasemonkey Scripts in Safari- an opensource thing called Greasekit. It’s pretty easy, you first download a thingie called SIMBL.

You gotta love the geek cred behind this description:

Problem:
Some applications do about 90% of what I want.

Solution:
Develop my own applications.

Better Solution:
Patch the application myself…

SIMBL (SIMple Bundle Loader) – pronounced like “symbol” or “cymbal” – enables hacks and plugins. For instance, SIMBL enables PithHelmet to enhance Safari.

Wow, I am glad to have my PithHelmet!

Please ignore the diversion. Install SIMBL, its a small app that goes somewhere deep in the bowls of the computer. The download GreaseKit, more or less a small plug-in file that you bury about 7 folders deep in your home directory.

The next time you launch Safari, you have a Greasekit menu, where you can add Greasemonkey Scripts. I;ve not tried too many (well just mine, and it works):

Keep those attributions a goin’ Link if you can!

Wow it has been so nice to be lazy, to be spending what feels like more time offline than online. All of the tech todos on my list for the holiday vacation remain undone (the list crumpled up and is burning in the wood stove now). The plan to to the Epic Year End Blog Reflective post? Never drafted. The list of predictions, dreams, resolutions for 2010? Not happening.

But without dropping the intent to do something to wrap the year in a bow, is to say that the 2009 thing that has kept my sanity and sense of purpose on track has been for a second year doing the Post a Photo a Day Thing on Flickr started in 2007 by D’Arcy Norman.

People like D’Arcy and Dean are resilient enough to put their 365 photos into video form; I’m too lazy, so instead use the flickr slideshow embed.

I’ve been at flickr posting since 2004, but this year have felt a surge of re-inspiration for photography, especially after getting back into using a digital SLR and using my new lenses purchased in the summer… I’m trying many new things, angles, low light action and more. The other new driving force is participating in The Dailyshoot, a new “:thing” which sprouted in November 2009. Every day, the site tweets an assignment, and participants merely tweet a reply with a link to their photo.

Since doing this pretty regularly since the end of November, I am finding it sometimes driving the direction of my daily photographic action, and its a secondary photo (not necessarily a lesser one) that becomes my 365 photo shot. But having a specific assignment helps drive my action, and can save me on days when my inspiration is waning.


cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Of course, this becomes Yet Another Thing to Do Every Day– but I can vouch there is a reward in the doing- and discovering- and connecting with others…

I could wax a lot on my own reflections on looking back at people, places, and unusual objects photographed, but its really my own story for myself- but still, the regular exercise of finding a photo that represents your day, activities, feelings, or just plain experimentation, does for me what no medicine or meditation can ever do. Its not for everyone, and lots of people talk about not being able to maintain the pace for a year– that’s okay, there is no failing grade here.

These kind of “X Per Day” groups are not unique, but I still find it remarkable (note to self, some people feel “amazing” is used too often) that this group, completely organic, self organizing has grown now to 263 members, with almost 25000 photos shared since the first year for the group (2008). There’s a lot to say about this phenomenon I spouted in a Feb 2009 presentation at Northern Voice.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

These are people doing incredible amounts of informal learning, networking, based on their interests, or desire to be better at something, or just a part of something. In this year, our flickr group saw a giant increase in the sharing/discussing in the flickr group discussions, and for a year, people picked up an ran with posting a monthly topic, as a help to drive people’s photo subjects. This was simple, I made the first topic in January, and the rule is the person who makes the current monthly topic can pick.tag someone else in the group to do it for the next month. This self-perpetuated for all 12 months last year, with no one in charge, or grading.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Heck, sometimes a gentle jab of a toy photo leads to a series of more unexpected connection….

So, I’ll be rewinding my flickr set for today, starting a new one, and setting out to do another year of daily photography. If you want any sense of what it means, and there are lots of stories out there like this, I hope it is okay Michael C if I share your message you sent today- it’s very powerful.

I first met Michael back in 2000 when I got my first Australia tour, and have had the pleasure of seeing him again on return trips to Adelaide or when he comes to the states. So while we’ve had this connection through other electronic and lesser in person opportunities, I find a real special way of knowing someone through their photographs- its some of what they see, where they live, but also says, “this is what is important or interesting to me.”

And with that, Micheal’s testimony–

I initially refused to accept the invitation to join the 2009/365 photos pool. I thought there would be no way I could keep up with posting a photo a day. After a few days mulling it over I decided what the hell and launched into it. I can now say categorically that it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made!

I had no idea what good would come from it. Over the course of this year, and because of my involvement in this project I have:

• Become a better photographer
• Opened my eyes to the world around me in a way I imagine children do naturally all the time, and in a way I can’t remember doing for a long long time
• Have enjoyed hundreds of photos from fellow group members
• Made many ‘Flickr friends’, as a result of sharing the minutiae of our daily lives
• Experienced the cycle of the seasons as I watched the photos change from summer to winter and back again over the course of the year
• really appreciated the support and tips from other group members
• used Flickr has a visual Twitter and more readily turned to Flickr rather than Twitter to know what was going on in my network
• eagerly looked forward to my daily walk with my camera to not only get needed exercise, but to take that daily photo
• learned so much about other places I have never seen
• Learned to look forward to every day as an opportunity to catch that special or unusual sight or moment
• Learned that images can connect people with very few words
• Learned that if I took the time to comment on others’ photos then people would reciprocate
• Eagerly Looked at Flickr every day for responses to my photos
• Become more assiduous with tagging and naming all photos

In short, I now appreciate the world around me more than I used to!

I will stay on as a more passive member of 2010/365, and free myself from the commitment to post a photo a day. As much as I have loved it, it has been a significant time commitment that I would now like to allocate to other tasks. But I will be there peeking around at your pix :)

Thank you everyone so much. It has been an absolute privilege to be part of this project and part of your lives.

All the very best for 2010, and keep on Flickring. I will.

Thanks Mike! I will see you there….

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

This post bookended by first and last photos for 2009!

Not that anyone would care,, this is a blog post for me as an audience. With some fiddling in flickr I was able to find the number of photos I took for cameras that are matched when you upload photos(find the camera, do a search on that model, than change the search results to search your own photos, check the number at the bottom of the search results).

I start with the genesis of my interest in photography, when in my last semester at University of Delaware (1986), needing an art elective, i chose a photography (a darkroom course). I cannot even remember why I chose it, but it was almost the best class I had in college, and had I made the accident a few years early, I might have had a different major.

One of the earliest images I developed that I like was this one of a run down chicken coop:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I did not have a manual 35mm camera at the time, but a room-mate did, and he said he never used it, so he loaned it to me for the semester. I am fairly sure it was a Pentax K1000- fully manual

public domain Wikipedia photo shared by SlugBug

Because I had shown this interest in photography, as a graduation present, my parents gave me an Olympus X-700, my own SLR

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

It was a basic kit with a stock 50mm lens, case, cheap flash. I think when I was working the following year in a Ritz Camera Store (Westview Mall in Baltimore) I bought a used zoom lens, but I cannot remember any details on it.

It was at this store that I picked up perhaps my favorite film cameras, a Nikon Nikkormat- I sold someone a new camera to replace this one, and the guy asked if I might know who might be interested in his old camera… I said, “me!” and I think I bought it for $100. It had a Nikkor f/1.4 lens.

The reason why was on my last Geology class as an undergrad, actually it was the field camp where we went to Sound Dakota, a guy on the trip told one story about this metal Nikon he carried- he had gone on raft trip, and took a spill, He thought the camera was ruined, but after taking it apart and letting it dry, it worked fine… I kept that in mind as it seemed like the most sturdy piece of equipment for taking photos.

I used that camera exclusively for my 6 years in graduate school, taking it all over the west. The original case got worn, cracked, and eventually it was just a case made of duct tape on the outside.

Sometime in the late 1980s I picked up a small pocket 35mm camera, an Olympus Stylus, but I was so pleased with how sharp the little camera was for people photos.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by the other Martin Taylor

Although it was mostly plastic, it was durable and its curvy shape was comfortable in the hand. On a Grand Canyon river trip I took in (?) 1988, I took the Nikkormat for black and white photos and the little Olympus for color.

The very first digital camera I got to use was one we got at Maricopa- the very first Apple QuickTake 100. It was huge, and I don’t remember being too impressed with the photos. Other people at the time were using that Sony Mavica one that wrote images to a floppy disk inserted into the camera– those just seemed so clunky looking.

My own self purchased digital Camera was an Olympus D-450, with a whopping 1.3 Megapixel resolution (I think the top quality images were 1280×960)– I got sometime around 1999. I went for this brand because of my experience with my small Olympus film camera

Its 32 Mb SmartMedia card could hold 72 images. I used this extensively on my 2000 sabbatical to New Zealand and Australia but all of the photos were uploaded to my own custom hand spun web site.

When I got back to my job at Maricopa, I picked up first and Olympus 3030 (3.3 MegaPixel) and then a C4040-Z (4 MegaPixel) for the photos I took on the job.

I liked the 4040 so much I bought one for myself and got many years of good use out of it, this was most likely the camera I was using when I started using this little site called “flickr” in March 2004 (the early pictures do not give camera data). Of the flickr data which includes camera data, I had 650 posted photos with this camera. The first photo that flickr gives camera information on is dated August 20 2004, so assuming all older photos in flickr were taken with this camera (63 of them), the total is 713.

In July 2005, I took the step up when I got mt first digital SLR, the Canon Digital Rebel XT, or as I later called it, the “Big Gun”

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

The photo quality was several steps above what I had been using for sure, and I had thought going back to an SLR might get me back to full manual mode shooting (cause at one time you did not even have a choice), but I usually found the Aperture priority or even full automatic was giving me great photo quality. I did not get any extra lenses, etc for it til later.

But I did take 2355 photos on flickr using this camera.

After a few years of using the “Big Gun” I had been noticing at conferences the fun my colleagues seemed to be having with the little pocket Canon Digital Elph cameras- and how lovely large that screen on the back was. So I picked up a Canon SD 800 IS:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I was able to find I took 4495 photos with this camera.

And I loved what this little camera could do, especially for something you can slip into a shirt pocket. It became my main camera for years, and it went so many places, did so many things. One of them was using it to shoot GigaPan scenes, the rig that moves a camera on a robot controlled tripod head to take multiple images that are stitched together to create a hugely detailed image. The goal of getting to a GigaPixel image is helped by several factors, including a longer optical zoom (mine was about 3.5x) and image resolution (mine was 7 MP).

So on a September 2008 trip to Japan, I was mesmerized by this new Canon that was not yet available in the states, that had among other nifty features, a 14 MP capacity! I could not resist the fun of buying a Japanese camera in Japan, so I got the little black IXY 3000 IS (eventually released in the US as the SD990 IS)

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I cant get an exact count on flickr photos posted by camera model, since it does not officially track this one, but by searching on the dates I used this camera the most, I come up with 3085 flickr photos posted using this camera.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I was still thinking of the poor Digital Rebel which had not been out much since I got wrapped up in the little pocket cameras, so to stir my interest, in 2008, I invested in a fast Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. I had thought I might find one cheaper in Hong Kong or Japan, but it was cheaper to get it from home ordering on Amazon…. but I ended up still not using the Digital Rebel after all.

Next I ought to include the iPhone (which I got in August 2008) as a camera.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

For a count of my iPhone photos, the camera model flickr search on catches just handful of photos- perhaps ones just sent by email; with the use of 3rd party phone apps, the camera must be reported differently, but since I always tag them iPhone, I get a count of 142 photos posted on flickr from the iPhone camera.

The camera landscape was reshaped again after a June 2009 workshop at the NMC Summer Conference — this was a day full of photography at Point Lobos with Bill Frakes (Sports Illustrated) and Don Henderson (Apple) and it totally reinvigorated my interest in going back to the DLSR. It was about 10 minutes before checking out of the hotel, I went online to Amazon to see what Canon had (since I had the one nice Canon Lens) and decided, impulsively, yes to order the EOS Rebel T1i

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I just love this camera! I am definitely experimenting more, and finding what I can do with low light and depth of field; really pushed now by the assignments of The Daily Shoot. To date I have only 1231 photos posted to flickr (since July, 2009) but that increases daily. To add to the outfit, I got the Tamron 18-270 zoom lens and am considering another one soon.

The flickr photo counts show which of my cameras I have used the most to post to flickr:

Though looking at my photo count, I am missing about 1000 photos credit (hmmm, is there a camera I forgot about?)

To be continued… for as long as I breathe!