Image titled “red right hand”from flickr taken on the 16/08/2005
Recently on flickr, the above imge that I had uploaded nineteen years ago resurfaced. Thanks to a coment from a stranger. On the day I was using flickr’s excellent iPhone app to monitor my feed. One drawback of the mobile app is it is difficult to determine the context of any interactions and the image itself in this situatiuon. Once I was able to acces flickr on a desktop I was able to see that the image is in an album called concrete canvas.
I also was able to see if I had origianlly captured it as a raw file by using Neofinder to search all my drives. If I had it would enable me to reprocess the file and perhaps present it in a better way. Afterall digital editing software has come along way in the last ten years never mind nineteen. So I found the file opened it an pocessed it again even though all I had was a jpeg.. This is the outcome.
What still perplexes me though, is that the image somehow surfaced in a strangers stream all these years later? I can see they added it to their favourites so I’m grateful for that.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | leave a tip, or buy a print
North Geelong, Victoria, Australia 2022-10-26 14:12:21
Back in 2004 when I first signed up for a free flickr account I had no idea what I was doing with the service. I did know that the volume of digital files I was creating with both cameras and smartphones needed to be seen and shared. Flickr’s initial offering allowed users to create sets as they were called then and also join groups. Groups could have an obvious common theme or be rearlly obscure. JG Ballard is an obscure group, whereas Paths we walk is more obvious. These seemed to be a great way to share my work.
Deer Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2022-12-12 13:03:49
Outside of these ideas albums allows me to interconnect images. Historically an exhibition has an overarching idea, the work on the walls expressses this. The viewer can choose to walk through the space and engage anyway they see fit.
North Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2022-10-25 16:26:42
Albums on a site like flickr are a far more web like experience, non linear and open-ended. Each picture I post can have multiple ideas runnng though it. I achieve this by putting images in mutiple albums from a simple time based one, for the year the image was made for example, to other ideas that constantly run though my work. Some of those ideas have their roots in the Situationists and their ideas about the derive. Others explore the added metadata that can add a layer of context or meaning to an image.
Lastly, each image I choose to upload needs to speak to the preceding image in some way. This forms an angoing process that has me dipping into my archive regularly. The connections may be obvious, subject matter or location for example, or subtle like line, shape or composition. I treat my feed as a permanent 24/7/365 gallery. Available for all the world to see.
Deep down this does not really answer why I photograph the places I do, or even what drives me to pick up a camera. Perhaps that idea is for another day?
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
This post originally appeared on my old free WordPress site, and as we approach 20 years of flickr I thought it was worth re-sharing here.
Flickr was launched on February 10, 2004 by Ludicorp, a Vancouver-based company founded by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. I stumbled upon it somehow in late 2004. At the time I was a bit over fiddling with my vicnet site and my tripod site
wikipedia table of popular image sharing sites
I had at least one blog at the time on blogger. I had a looked at several of the fledgling services on offer at the time. Some are on this list on wikipedia. None of which really appealed to me. Flickr however seemed somehow more ‘edgy’. I signed up, and off I began on a wild journey of discovery. I began with a free account and kept my uploads within the free parameters for a while, but very quickly saw the benefit of a ‘pro’ account.
I was vaguely aware of online communities as I had been online since 1995. And as a voracious reader I was constantly following links all over the shop learning tons on the way. But this was my first ‘community’.
Those first few years on flickr were amazing I got to meet many wonderful local photographers and engage with many international ones too. The Melbourne group in particular was very social and we met quite regularly for a while. We even organised a group exhibition in 2006. It was entitled ‘Web to Wall’ and was held at a gallery called Smith Street Gallery.
flyer for the Melbourne Flickr exhibition
One thing that has always struck me was how many of the Melbourne flickr community had an IT background. The late 90s and early 2000s in my memory was a good time for people in that industry. Many were in their 30s and were in demand and paid well. They could afford expensive cameras and computer hardware that was also expensive. Was this a trend across flickr, maybe, it’s hard to tell? But I feel the convergence of high speed internet, new and cheaper digital cameras and lowering costs of software and hardware along with the demographic, augmented the rise of flickr.
The first few years I didn’t really have much of an idea out what I was uploading and why. I had no plan or direction. Eventually I worked things out. More on this in a future post. It is plain to me that I use the service in a very differently to a lot of flickr’s users. And for this reason flickr is still very important to me.
My flickr statistics in February 2023
The statistics alone make it worthwhile. My work would only ever have been seen by a small group of people who were able to attend my physical exhibitions.
Screen grab of results from academia.edu on Thursday the 9th of March 2023
Also over the years flickr has been part of a subset of research that looked at photography, the web, social media and the networked image. A search on acedemia.edu, for example reveals over 80 thousand results. This also makes the service in my mind completely relevant.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
Recently there had been some consternation regarding Instagram’s user interface changes. There was a concerted effort to drive photography based traffic to other platforms including, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr.
I don’t understand why there has not been an overwhelming response to these ideas. Even so, photographers managed to connect and make meaningful work BEFORE Instagram, so why not migrate to another service?
I guess one part of the problem is signal to noise ratio. This is especially difficult if you are new to a service like Tumblr, or Flickr. Personally speaking I have never cracked Tumblr’s algorithm. And while I’m no Flickr super star I certainly have in my “friends list” on Flickr, plenty of good photographers whose work I enjoy all the time.
So how do you find these good photographers? There’s a couple of ways. Look at someone you know already is a good practitioner. Their contacts and favourites list will point you in the right direction. Also look at the albums they have created, this gives you a quick insight into their thinking about their photography. For example are they just focused on cameras equipment or places, or other more esoteric ideas about what a photo can communicate? Lastly, look at my favourites or someone else’s you know already.
Here’s a short list of photographers; in no particular order. Well actually in the order that they uploaded work to Flickr, while I wrote this post. Also bear in mind I am heavily biased towards, Urban Landscape, and New Topographic styles of photography.
Then there’s groups. These are groups of people whose interest are shared, whether it be subject matter, or genres or some other connective creative tissue. Find a group whose ideas align with yours and then scroll through and find some photographers whose work resonates with you. Follow them and look at who they follow and before you know it you have consumed a large chunk of time and in the process discovered some great photographers and photography.
Here’s a small list of groups that reflect my own photography interests; again heavily biased towards urban, landscape and street photography.
Either way the social connections that make the web a great place to connect is never more than a few clicks away.
If you decide to give flickr a go let me know and we can connect there too.
*A caveat in these groups I am an administrator
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
my 2021 stats from flickrmy community interactions
Flick have released a new feature for their pro acount holders. An annual statistical report. Pretty cool I reckon.
Bit surprised by my community interactions though?
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
A huge spike in traffic is always welcome, even if short-lived.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
Truck Parking Bay on the western fringes of the CBD, 2021-01-30 @ 10:38:20 on an overcast Saturday morning.
Photography often takes a back seat in January for me. Summer photography has been prolific this year for me though.
The weather continues to be overcast in the mornings. This is somewhat unusual here in Melbourne, in January. I decided to get out and exploit this on Saturday. I went looking for spots to make pictures in and around the infrastructure projects going on. Close to home.
This truck holding bay is a favourite of mine due to its location and topography. You can see the CBD easily and in the right conditions make some good pictures of Melbourne.
The blue screens on the Citylink off ramp are the only clue that construction is underway. All the action is behind me here. I wandered west with my ‘Blad and made a few pictures of some of the works going on. As I have yet to process this film it remains to be seen if I was successful.
At least I have some record of the changes that are occurring. This forms a major motivation behind what I am focusing on these days.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
I’m testing my new iPhone 12, here’s a result posted on flickr.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
Flickr river is a site that taps into the flickrapi and offers some interesting feedback. It created a randomly generated series of my “most interesting” pictures. Most interesting is generated by an algorithm. As an algorithm it has little to do with the visual quality of the images and may draw on other aspects of my activity across the flickr website.
Flickr river has been around as long as flickr itself and over the years the developer has added interesting features.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
This view has gone. More residential and office space has filled the small green space left in this obscure pocket of Melbourne. I made this picture in June 2013. The World Trade Centre building is gone as well. The famous statue, Bunjil is slated to be moved from Wurundjeri Way to an as yet decided location.
About the author.
Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print
