Topic: Well, that got meaningless fast.

[jharr]

I used to really really want to have a photo "Explored" on Flickr. That seemed like the ultimate Flick-chievement. Even after I found that the photos were selected by an algorithm, it was still gnawing at me that none of my photos had ever been 'selected'. Even after I decided about a year ago to stop pursuing views and faves by posting every shot to every valid group, the "Explored" monkey was hanging on my back. I had really just about given up hope since I don't take over saturated, over sharpened, HDR digipics of kingfishers and macro insects. So imagine my surprise when a photo that I don't really consider very good got "Explored". It was the photo of the beach sand toys that I posted in the weekend thread. Really, the only reason I put it on Flickr at all was so that I would have something to contribute to the thread here.
So here is where it gets weird. At first I was excited, and as the hundreds of views started stacking up, I got more excited. Generally, I get 20 - 50 views over the course of a year and maybe one or two faves, so I try to go look at the photos and other faves of the people who take the time to look at mine. This quickly went way beyond what I have time to do. But I did go and look at a few portfolios and fave albums. I was a little taken aback at what I saw. Just about everyone who had 'faved' my photo was just hitting the 'fave' for every image in the Explored page. What!? Why would you do that? There was no thought or consideration of the image at all really. Just an automatic click of the star icon. These people have hundreds of thousands of "favorite" photos. Now I consider myself fairly tech-savvy and pretty well up on social media trends, but this one caught me by surprise for sure. The "Fave" and "Like" icons have become completely meaningless. We just click them because they are there and not because we have any sort of real appreciation for what is being presented. I mean this "We" in the collective sense of all social media users.
On the other hand, I think this forum, while very friendly is also sincere and there are not flurries of automatic platitudes.
So to the FIlmwasters, I say "thank you" for not encouraging mediocre creativity and maintaining an atmosphere of acceptance and sincere appreciation when it is deserved. I am motivated to do better work by everyone here and finally, I no longer feel the need to be "Explored".

[Bryan]

Thanks to that fantastic camera  . It is a great shot though.


I've noticed that there are some people that seem to fave everything I put on Flickr.  I've looked at their sites and they may have hundreds of thousands of favorites.  I rarely use the favorite button and it's usually to save something I want to reference back to later. 

[Late Developer]

When I was "active" on Flickr, I had a few photos "Explored".  The first time I found out, I was pleased but I'm cynical enough to believe that being Explored doesn't infer that a bunch of people have discovered my phoptographic genius and I'm about to become the next (insert name of favourite famous photographer here).

I came to the conclusion early that Flickr was, at best, a good bit of free (if irritating) storage and, at worst, a corporate monster that whould attempt to claim rights over my work and sell / licence it for its own gain.  Some of the groups are okay but many are just a dump for the aforementioned migraine-inducing HDR pastiches.

I gave up in the end and deleted my photos.  I think I have one or two on there at the moment but have no plans to use it extensively.  Fact is, I've never sought approbation or points from unknown but apparently "friendly" back-slappers, so Flickr became virtually irrelevant to me.  My only use for it remains, as far as I can determine, to view a wider range of photos from fellow FW'ers than is posted here. 

At the end of the day, I have infinitely more respect for the people who post onto this site - some of whom I've got to know personally. 

It's nice to receive plaudits from anyone but I value honesty and constructive criticism far more - particularly from those I know and respect.

[jojonas~]

I noticed this a few years back that there's a movement of people following others and/or liking their stuff in hopes that they'll get noticed back.

it was quite typical to tumblr for a while. people following others and if they didn't follow back then they'd unfollow quickly.

I get the most out of flickr when I get to know other users there by commenting back and forth on each others photos. I've actually met up with a few of the local ones and made good friends
a comment just saying "nice" is nice but hearing someone's thoughts expressed is the best.

either way, getting a surge of views from an explore is fun and all but I don't think I've ever had someone become an "active" follower of my stream from that

[macfred]

A few thoughts about beeing explored ...

In the last three years I had about 30 photographs being explored (some digital, some film).
I really don't know how EXPLORE works, but if you will notice a few things,
maybe you will be explored the very next day …

1.Make sure that you have 'flickr friends' (500+, better more)

2.Select one of your photographs (under - or even better overexposed and a little blurry will work perfect for you)

3.Name your picture - something like :

- The Clickin' Clackin' of the High Heel Shoes - Platform 9 3/4 - revisited -
sounds fine

- Home - The Very Last Days Of Summer (For Josie - Oh lord, have mercy ...) -
will be a good one too …

4.Add a description to the photo. People love things like :

- captured this one in early morning rain after making love to the milk maid -

- captured from a backseat of a '57 Chevrolet Corvette way down Little Prickly Pear Canyon Road -

- captured with an old Contax Rangefinder and CZ Biogon 35mm f/2.8 - (fiddle your exifs !!)

5. Add a lot of popular 'tags' like :

- vintage - textured - girl - locomotive - tracks - blur - blurred - FUJI X100 (never had one but I think it will work pretty good as a 'tag') - LEICA (good for 3000 views+) - manual focus - 50mm - 35mm - (don't forget this one !!) - analog film (another great 'tag') - lady bug - (very popular !) -and last not least (very promising!) - bokeh

Now, it's merely a matter of time you will be explored. Good luck !
Don't take flickr too serious.

 
mac

[Francois]

I'm starting to feel the likes on Flickr are a bit like those robot operated friends on Facebook... For some, plenty of likes bu nobody home.

[charles binns]

Like all social media, Flickr is rather pointless in my opinion.

I was on it for a while, as well as Facebook, before coming out of both when it was rumoured that Facebook (or Flickr or both) wanted to own the copyright of any images posted.

I am now on Twitter and, to be honest, can't really see the point of that either.

[jharr]

I actually find Flickr to be useful for managing my photos (at least the ones I want to go back and look at again later). Tagging and albums are good organizational tools. I haven't found anything I like better that runs locally on my windows pc. I also like some of the film and alt process groups. The 'old' ones tend to be a pretty good searchable body of knowledge about very specific things (e.g. microfilm, camera make/model, etc.). So in that respect I still like Flickr and do a fair bit of searching if I am looking to buy a bulk roll of some funky film. The likes and views are now hollow (except the one I just got from Bryan. WHAT!?). Actually, a few filmwasters view and like the photos over there that don't get posted here and I consider that to be meaningful feedback. My mom has a Facebook account, so once in a while I will post something there and she will say something like "Why don't you put down the camera and call your mother!? You're so busy being an 'arteeest' that I could be laying on the floor dead and you wouldn't even know!" which is heartwarming. I have tried twitter, tumblr and instagram, but I just don't quite get the point there. They are just platforms for the "like" without any of the useful stuff that Flickr provides. I do like Blogger and I follow the blogs of a number of filmwasters. That is a nice way to get into the head or behind the scenes with some very good photographers. I write mostly boring articles about the usual stuff, cameras, films, processes, etc. But I agree that this site is where I come to be inspired by astonishingly creative people.

[limr]

I used to really really want to have a photo "Explored" on Flickr. That seemed like the ultimate Flick-chievement. Even after I found that the photos were selected by an algorithm, it was still gnawing at me that none of my photos had ever been 'selected'. Even after I decided about a year ago to stop pursuing views and faves by posting every shot to every valid group, the "Explored" monkey was hanging on my back. I had really just about given up hope since I don't take over saturated, over sharpened, HDR digipics of kingfishers and macro insects. So imagine my surprise when a photo that I don't really consider very good got "Explored". It was the photo of the beach sand toys that I posted in the weekend thread. Really, the only reason I put it on Flickr at all was so that I would have something to contribute to the thread here.
So here is where it gets weird. At first I was excited, and as the hundreds of views started stacking up, I got more excited. Generally, I get 20 - 50 views over the course of a year and maybe one or two faves, so I try to go look at the photos and other faves of the people who take the time to look at mine. This quickly went way beyond what I have time to do. But I did go and look at a few portfolios and fave albums. I was a little taken aback at what I saw. Just about everyone who had 'faved' my photo was just hitting the 'fave' for every image in the Explored page. What!? Why would you do that? There was no thought or consideration of the image at all really. Just an automatic click of the star icon. These people have hundreds of thousands of "favorite" photos. Now I consider myself fairly tech-savvy and pretty well up on social media trends, but this one caught me by surprise for sure. The "Fave" and "Like" icons have become completely meaningless. We just click them because they are there and not because we have any sort of real appreciation for what is being presented. I mean this "We" in the collective sense of all social media users.
On the other hand, I think this forum, while very friendly is also sincere and there are not flurries of automatic platitudes.
So to the FIlmwasters, I say "thank you" for not encouraging mediocre creativity and maintaining an atmosphere of acceptance and sincere appreciation when it is deserved. I am motivated to do better work by everyone here and finally, I no longer feel the need to be "Explored".

I Like this! 

I didn't even know what "explored" was until this thread. It sounds a little bit...violate-y. It sounds like Wordpress's "Freshly Pressed" posts. I had two of my posts get Freshly Pressed back when I was blogging more consistently. That was a heady 15 minutes

I never thought of Flickr as a social thing. I thought it was just a way to store and display a few photos for people you know. The following and the liking aspect was never a motivation for me. Though, knowing that most folks around here don't offer meaningless accolades, it feels nice when a Filmwaster "likes" one of my photos. As for me, I will click on "like" for the photos that I, y'know, LIKE. For real.

[Adam Doe]

...
5. Add a lot of popular 'tags' like :... - analog film (another great 'tag') ...

 
mac

  Good point. Now listen up kids, make sure that your camera is loaded with the analog film and not that nasty digital film... 

[thatguychad]

Good point. Now listen up kids, make sure that your camera is loaded with the analog film and not that nasty digital film... 

I used digital film once and someone in my town died! Never again.

On another note, I had no idea what Explore was until I had an image (a good one, at that) explored. I don't have many followers on Flickr (30, to be exact) but I did use the filmisnotdead tag, as I do for many images. It's by far the most-viewed image and has more than 12,000 views than any other photo on my stream. I won't go out of my way to get one explored, but it did feel good to get some attention to a photo for once.

[Francois]

Maybe I should write a script that automatically puts in the exif comments all that's needed to make my pictures trendy 

[everydaylanre]

I too use to only like photos that I really really loved on flickr / instagram / facebook as a way to curate photos I want to come back to for inspiration.  I had the same discovery you did about the likeaholics when one of my photos was explored.  I even just read an ebook from Thomas Leathard where he suggested the similar concept of following a bunch of people just so you get the follow back, which leads to more likes.

Nowadays, I use the like button more as an acknowledgement – I saw your photo/post and gained something from it at that moment, so I like button it.  It's more like a pat on the back "good job" than "I LOVE LOVE LOVE this photo."

I now use Pinterest to bookmark photos I love.

[Francois]

Somehow, I see that like button as a lazy man's way to leave a comment. Why go through the trouble of using a keyboard when a single click of the mouse does the same thing?

With age, I've come to realize that we should never underestimate human's propensity towards laziness...

[jharr]

I now use Pinterest to bookmark photos I love.

I too am getting the allure of Pinterest to collect and organize images that aren't mine.

Somehow, I see that like button as a lazy man's way to leave a comment. Why go through the trouble of using a keyboard when a single click of the mouse does the same thing?

With age, I've come to realize that we should never underestimate human's propensity towards laziness...

I agree completely. I figure if I am taking more than 10sec to look at a photo and really appreciate it, I can take another 10 or 20 to leave a meaningful comment. So not "nice pic" or "WOW!", but letting the photog know what it was about the photo that caught my attention or that I thought they did well. That's one way we improve as artists.

[SLVR]

you guys are all crazy. If you cant get explored and have likes than what's the point of shooting! 

in all seriousness though, I've only had two images that I liked get explored. The rest are usually just mediocre shots or BOKEH shots. Funny enough the shots I liked that did get explored ended up getting dropped from explore.

Im not sure if any of you have done an explore checker but it tells you how many times youve been explored and when.

http://bighugelabs.com/scout.php

[Sandeha Lynch]

Explore works by an algorithm with images going up or down by their popularity, though just occasionally you can feel the human hand at work.  This image gradually made its way to Explore's number 2 spot, and the next day it got pulled, out, gone, completely.



Not what they wanted to see among the flowers and sunsets, I guess.

[monkowa]

Is there a photo critique thread or anything like that on here? I'd definitely contribute even though I'm quite shy about that stuff. I think that'd be pretty rad.
Also, what if we make it a point to comment meaningfully on a photo that catches our fancy on flickr? Like once a week or something? I dunno. Seems like it'd at the very least make someone's day.

[jharr]

Is there a photo critique thread or anything like that on here? I'd definitely contribute even though I'm quite shy about that stuff. I think that'd be pretty rad.
Also, what if we make it a point to comment meaningfully on a photo that catches our fancy on flickr? Like once a week or something? I dunno. Seems like it'd at the very least make someone's day.

The idea of a critique thread has been put forward, but the consensus had been that any critique of someone else's creativity is completely subjective, so why bother? I can see some value if you are struggling with something technical, but even composition rules end up being more of a "guideline" than a "code". So critiques end up being less helpful than you would think. I have found that viewing photos and taking note of the things I like, then trying to emulate that is the most helpful thing I have done for myself. I do like your idea of making a habit of commenting on Flickr or iPernity. I may just try that.

[monkowa]

Is there a photo critique thread or anything like that on here? I'd definitely contribute even though I'm quite shy about that stuff. I think that'd be pretty rad.
Also, what if we make it a point to comment meaningfully on a photo that catches our fancy on flickr? Like once a week or something? I dunno. Seems like it'd at the very least make someone's day.

The idea of a critique thread has been put forward, but the consensus had been that any critique of someone else's creativity is completely subjective, so why bother? I can see some value if you are struggling with something technical, but even composition rules end up being more of a "guideline" than a "code". So critiques end up being less helpful than you would think. I have found that viewing photos and taking note of the things I like, then trying to emulate that is the most helpful thing I have done for myself. I do like your idea of making a habit of commenting on Flickr or iPernity. I may just try that.

Ipernity? There's a whole slew of photo sharing sites. How is it? Are there others worth a sniff?

[Francois]

Well... iPernity got everybody that was disgruntled when Flickr did some changes. But now many of those who switched say that it wasn't really worth the change.

There's still tons of photo sharing sites, but Flickr is probably still one of the most active.

There's Facebook which is the most popular... but I wouldn't touch it with a 100 foot pole simply because of their user consent form that makes them the owners of everything you post there.
Then there's Instagram, but I wouldn't touch it either since it belongs to Facebook.
Third comes Flickr, decent but not like it used to be in ye'ole daze.
After that comes Picasa, iPernity, 500px, Tumblr
Last is all the image hosting sites like Imageshack, Photobucket and such.

[jharr]

Also, what if we make it a point to comment meaningfully on a photo that catches our fancy on flickr? Like once a week or something? I dunno. Seems like it'd at the very least make someone's day.

You have inspired me to no longer "like" photos on Flickr, but instead to make a meaningful comment about what it is subjectively that I like about a photo. I guess if I want that kind of feedback on mine, I should start with giving it to others.

[Francois]

I just discovered a hack on the Flickr!
I just did a search for fun by looking for the word "explored" and discovered that it will search everything you put in that photo's metadata for the same word.
So, if you put "explored" in the tags or the title of the image, it will pop with all the explored photos...

[Paul Mitchell]

The weirdest thing just happened on my flickr stream... In the 7 years I have been posting images my overall view count was steadily rising and had just reached 850k on Friday. By yesterday evening it had suddenly shot up to nearly 2 million! WTF!!

[jharr]

The weirdest thing just happened on my flickr stream... In the 7 years I have been posting images my overall view count was steadily rising and had just reached 850k on Friday. By yesterday evening it had suddenly shot up to nearly 2 million! WTF!!

Not sure. you have 50 "Explored" photos, but the last one was 12/11/2014, so that doesn't really explain it. It could be of course that Flickr's "counting" mechanism is somehow lagging and just now catching up to the real number of views. It seems that your photos are 'well-viewed' having between 1K and 2K views each. So if you have 1000 photos, the math works out. Still the mystery is the sudden 2x jump. I have stopped relying on anything Flickr tells me unless it is a DM from another member.

[KevinAllan]

The weirdest thing just happened on my flickr stream... In the 7 years I have been posting images my overall view count was steadily rising and had just reached 850k on Friday. By yesterday evening it had suddenly shot up to nearly 2 million! WTF!!

Paul, you might want to use Google Image Search to establish whether someone has unexpectedly linked to your image from somewhere really popular, like a celebrity gossip site or a teenage beauty tips You-Tuber.

Or it could just be that the world has woken up to the value of your fine images.

[Ed Wenn]

Love it, or hate it....Flickr still gives us something to talk about, right?

[Francois]

Oh yeah, Flickr does deliver in that sense.
Funny thing is my most viewed picture is a dreadful image of my Lomo Konstruktor. But I think what brings people to it is the lengthy description of the various details missing in the instruction book that you need to know in order to make the darn thing work.

My most viewed pictures are usually in the 700 views... and I've got a whopping 47 followers!

Now, that is something.

[Bryan]

Oh yeah, Flickr does deliver in that sense.
Funny thing is my most viewed picture is a dreadful image of my Lomo Konstruktor. But I think what brings people to it is the lengthy description of the various details missing in the instruction book that you need to know in order to make the darn thing work.

My most viewed pictures are usually in the 700 views... and I've got a whopping 47 followers!

Now, that is something.

My most viewed photo is my Zorki 4K with over 4,000.  I have no idea why. 

Zorki 4K by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

[jharr]

My most viewed (the reason I started this thread) is my one 'explored' photo at 10,482 views. Before that, it was a photo of my dog Boris at 4,238 views. Not sure why that photo got so many views, but...


Portra Boris by James Harr, on Flickr

[Paul Mitchell]

Love Boris! Can see why it reached Explore.