Consider this post smack dab in the center of the author extolling themselves… hmmm, that might be nearly all of them, eh?
But it’s my blog and it means all my own rules, and I found it nifty through a flickr forum that a photo I shared ended up in a video celebrating their 18th birthday (bash flickr all you want, let me know what dot com website has been there for you since 2004).
I hear the script of a movie for which the title may describe me:
(a web link in my email opens up)
CogDog: Oh, my God! (Cogdog takes a peek.) Thank you.
(he clicks through the video, looking for something)
CogDog: The flickr video’s here! The new flickr video’s here!
Anyone on Twitter” Well I wish I could get so excited about nothing.
CogDog: Nothing? Are you kidding?! At the 3 second mark, my sunset photos.! I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this video every day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity, you’re photo in a flickr video, that makes people. I’m impressed! Things are going to start happening to me now.
paraphrased and mangled from the phone book scene of “The Jerk”
Yes, I have been in flickr almost from their start, I think I created my account in March 2004, a month after it opened. One feature sometimes lost in the mix are the groups that swim there as communities, places for people to share photos and have discussions. I have not waded too much into them, but some small link share got me earlier this year looking to the calls for responses and joining in the Flickr Social group.
I think it was a link I saw in some place to respond to a question in Flickr Social about the use of Creative Commons licenses. (the question came from Open Futures who have an interesting survey I just completed this week about flickr photos, CC licenses, and use for AI training).
Alas I am wandering off track.
I saw the call for sunset/sunrise photos as part of the celebration of flickr’s 18th birthday and heck, I love flickr, and have many many MANY sunset pix from the front view of our country home. This one spoke loudest:
And the reason, as often it is, is the story behind, which you usually never know from the photo itself. We get plenty of knock your socks off sunsets here on the Canadian prairies, given the large open skies. But many of the most memorable ones happen where late in the day, the sky looks dull, full of clouds, with no chance of a pretty sky — and BOOM! It pops out of no where.
That was this day on February 6 this year- Cori and I were rushing home as we had to be there for something I forget. When this brilliant light emerged from the west side of our grid road, we both looked at each other with the same expression: We are late but this is too good not to stop and appreciate (as in take a photo).
I posted it in the flickr social forum, and forgot about it. I did click the link when an email came with an announcement of the video compiled from submissions, and I watched, honestly having forgotten which one I had submitted!
I did not even see mine, and was ready to click on when I saw the credits! I had to go back to the flickr Social group post to find what the heck I put in there. I watched again, and it was at the 0:03 mark!
This is the 6 frame version GIF of this blah blah blog post:
In the time since I did the screen grabs, the views wehn from 77,000 above to over 360,000.
The new phone book is here!
Yup, this flickr fan boy still is just that. I do not need to convince everyone else anymore, I just know that it will always be my place for photos and sharing. Taking and sharing photos there is easily my main One Thing. And it has been the main catalyst for many of my own True Stories of Openness.
There was a dust up recently about the deletion of a large swath of CC0 licensed Internet Archive book scans from the flickr commons. There was a petition in the Public Domain Review, but flickr reversed their decision that same day, here from a tweet from the guy at the top of flickr.
I expressed my appreciation as a quote/reply, and as much as I bemoan the value of likes, this one was something special:
Things are going to start happening to me now!
Navin R Cogdog
I have to say again that for an 18 year old web site to still have this energy and vitality, well it gives this one participant something to feel good about, whether I get my photos in their videos or not. And yes, it’s easier to toss photos into Google an it will slap A1 all over it so suggest tags, etc, but it never feels like there are people at the helm, like it does at Flickr.
Thanks flickr.
Featured Image: Made from a screenshot from the flickr sunset video post, technically it is copyrighted, combined with a screenshot of my flickr profile featuring my own CC BY photo. So this is a violation of copyright, come sue me.
