Flickr Explore
Friday, August 24th, 2007
The vast photo-sharing site Flickr has a feature called Explore that has been around for quite some time. It is essentially a popularity contest driven by many factors, some listed below in this blurb from flickr:
Flickr labs have been hard at work creating a way to show you some of the most awesome photos on Flickr. We like to call it interestingness. Besides being a five syllable word suitable for tongue twisters, it is also an amazing new Flickr Feature.
There are lots of things that make a photo ‘interesting’ (or not) in the Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic photos and stories are added to Flickr.
Granted that there are enough photographers (many millions) with enough photographs on flickr that finding the “interesting” images among the less interesting images can be tough so this is one of flickr’s many social tools to help those of us who use it. I’ve found some excellent photography through exploring Explore and some of those photographers have become friends over time. Explore can be useful.
If one is new to flickr and wants his or her photography to be seen, using flickr’s social tools: tags, groups, comments, discussions and more to bring people to one’s photography is a good thing. It’s the mixture of these web-based social tools with competition that makes me uneasy about Explore.
flickr is a social site where the content is contributed by users: photographs, threaded discussions, groups and whole sub-cultures. With no users, flickr would just be a bunch of tools with nothing to show for them. So, it’s in flickr’s best interest to build tools that collect more users and encourage them to post more photographs. Tools like Explore, while questionable in terms of a photographer’s creative development are very useful for flickr as they drive more use.
Gaming the system
Explore can be looked at not just as a tool for exploration but also as a popularity contest driven by: views, favs, comments, tags, and other ingredients flickr labs cooks up.
Once looked at this way Explore can be “gamed;” a flickr user can find ways to have a photograph listed on Explore by taking direct action rather than passively hoping that it will become popular. A few techniques for this are garnering comments or quid pro quo commenting (I comment on you if you comment on me), comment groups where the rules are that if you want a comment on your image you have to comment on 5 others, and so on; putting the right tags on the image, and more. I know there are many more ways to game Explore and the more technically sophisticated flickr users have come up with ways that are both ingenious and fascinating and maybe sick at the same time (how far will people go to become popular?).
Flickr Scout and trophy walls
And, lest you think this is some small detail that a half dozen flickr addicts are concerned with, the web site Flickr Toys uses people’s fascination and concern with Explore to drive advertising revenue. With flickr Scout any flickr user can enter their user name and come up with a beautiful array of thumbnails of each of their images on flickr that has made Explore. Many flickr users concerned with Explore build these arrays and then post them in their flickr streams like a wall of trophies.
People newer to flickr get excited when they get their first “trophy” and sometimes post one of these arrays with a single photograph in it. Others post these arrays at intervals with more and more images in them and it’s implicit in this that large arrays are better than small arrays.
Competition and creativity
Even without Explore there are many instances of popularity driving the kinds of images photographers take and share. One of my favorite flickr photographers who happens to have world-class skills and a great eye for composition, found one particular image that his fans went wild over and he repeated that theme through dozens of photographs seemingly to drive his popularity. Variation on a theme is one thing but this was obviously pandering to fans to drive popularity, his creative process was shut down and he seemed to be focussed on popularity, not photography.
My biggest concern with Explore is that many flickr users change the way they take and then process pictures on their computers in order to become more popular.
If you follow the most popular images on flickr you’ll notice that most of them have increased color saturation, contrast, and sharpening, to the point where some almost look unnatural. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting with this stuff but when experimentation is driven by concern with popularity that bothers me and it leads to a pervasive look on flickr of over saturated images.
Also, and this is extremely important, if I’m trying to drive my own popularity I’m less likely to take chances with my photography and in fact, I might take fewer pictures or post fewer pictures, only saving and posting the ones that seem like they might become popular.
This idea of trying to find someone else’s formula (short cut) for success and then trying to mimic it is everywhere today and by having a social tool like Explore the folks at flickr are enabling a part of human nature: competitiveness, that in creative arts like photography, doesn’t lead to more or better work, just work that is aimed at being popular.
If you’re flickr, Explore is a great way to drive more use. if you’re a flickr user it’s important to be clear about any affects your interest in Explore is having on your photography.
Disclaimer
In case you think this post is driven by sour grapes because my photography hasn’t made Explore I should tell you that I’ve been listed there more than most. And, I’ve noticed that there is no coincidence between what many would agree is my best work and my work that has become popular. Maybe because I’m older and a bit more secure than the mean flickr user who my guess is in their mid twenties, this stuff has never had any influence on the types of pictures I take or the ones I choose to share on the web. I’m happy when others like my work and comment on it but I would never want that attention to drive my creative process.
Despite what you think, Richard, I definitely agree with your post. When I first got on Flickr, I was so pressed to make Explore. It made me feel that I had been “discovered” and that my photography was worth pursuing. My first image was a boat in thailand – not a great image, but one with saturated (not fake) turquoise blue.
It’s funny because this image actually drives me crazy. It has the edge of another boat in the corner, but people were so quick to get excited about the exotic locale and favorited/commented. To this day it’s still one of my most popular images. Incidentally I posted another one from the shoot that didn’t have that edge in the corner – it also made Explore, but isn’t favorited as much as the other one… :o).
And like you said, images that I think are my best have hardly been commented on at all – and I think they happen to be the most creative of my work (and the most artistic). I avoided a lot of that work for awhile because there was little attention, but when I took a photo workshop this summer, it was those artistic images that I was praised for, and not the “happy snap” of Ko Poda in Thailand. I’ve definitely learned my lesson there.
Also, in terms of gaming Explore, one of the big things I learned while living in a different time zone, is that it matters when you post your images if you want to be featured in Explore. The best times are between 8 am and 3 pm EST. People are at work, procrastinating, and scanning flickr for an escape. I got much more attention when I waited to post at those times instead of posting when I had a chance to connect to the internet.
I can’t say that I’m still not in a tiny way driven to get recognition through Explore, but I’m no longer letting it influence how I shoot pictures and I never let it influence what I thought was a good photograph. I’m also not into quid-pro-commenting. I comment on contacts’ images, but only when I really like them. I favorite even fewer. Sometimes I think I’m a bit picky, but I hope that means that my opinion will be valued more…
Michaela: Interesting about post times, we’ll have to check that out to see if that holds true. One of the things I admire about you is the fact that you post what you want, when you want and don’t seem to be influenced by any of this stuff at all. Of course, living overseas in Africa with limited access would make it hard to game any system. Glad to see you’re not into the quid pro quo commenting thing either, I really think it distorts things terribly.
Richard, you’ve written a very fine essay about Flickr, and the lengths many Flickr photographers will go to, in order to get more comments, build a fan base, and of course, be featured in Explore. I look at Explore, and I’ve discovered some excellent photographers there. But, for the most, part, most photographs there are, as you pointed out, overly saturated, overly Photoshopped, etc. I boost saturation too when it’s called for, and when it fits with the still life subject I’m photographing. None of my photos have made to Explore, and I’m somewhat pleased by that. I’m happy to receive comments from a relatively small circle of people. Sharing photos is what Flickr started out to be. Sadly, for some, it’s needed to feed their egos. I wish they’d concentrate on taking a photograph, sharing it, and not trying to get a lot of comments, or make it to Explore. It’s not a popularlity contest! I’ve seen so many bad photos on Explore that Explore really doesn’t have much meaning for me.
Thanks Gary. As one of your fans, I must say that many of your photos should be featured on Explore (if it were a measure of quality rather than popularity) and the fact that they’re not says worlds about this issue.
And, I know you’re not sitting out there in North Bend working on ways to have one of your photographs “make” Explore, you’re thinking of what to photograph next and which new lens you might need to do it.
While flickr most probably will lure some photographs to repeat themselves, when they first get acknowledged on flickr, its not unique to flickr in a sense that same pattern has been repeated over and over in flickr’s precessors like photoSIG and/or stock agencies (when you get your first photos sold).
Downside on this explore game is that some of the comments in flickr are pretty empty. For example ‘greap capture’, ‘a beauty’ etc. which are good for ego, don’t tell you how it could have been even better. Favorites are also interesting topic in a sense, that can be used for quite separate ways. One might use them as indication that they liked the images, others might use it as a bookmark on image on which they want to return later and some might not favor any images, but instead simply use bookmarking tools on their browser to bookmark all images that they want to return to.
While this game might be known issue and I should have been able to avoid its lure, I have to admit that it has had its impact on how I’ve tried to use flickr. Right after I bought my pro account for a year, I uploaded all my images in downscaled version to flickr. Since then I’ve once deleted all images, uploaded some back, then deleted some of those and so on …
After all these phases/rounds, I finally decided to ignore whole explore game and simply use free flickr account as portfolio for english speaking “audience” with relatively small set of images, while my own website with bigger variety of images is targeted for finnish speaking “audience”.
Juha: good for you. The idea is to have a plan and not work it based on the social feedback alone (or at all). I realize that other sites also have social “baggage” but what I’ve seen with flickr and also with jpg magazine is the pro-active use by the service to generate more use through these tools and users turning that into their own competitive games. All good until it impacts your photography in a bad way. Thanks for your comment.
I’m going to start collecting examples of groups that game flickr, here’s one:
P1F1 – Post 1, Fav 1
Rules: For every picture you post, you must favorite another from the P1F1 pool.
There’s a great post on flickr in general with a long and varied comment thread at Alec Soth’s weblog: Where are the great pictures on Flickr?.
I don’t agree with most of the comments, I think flickr is what you make of it and can be quite useful.
Today I join to “P1F1 – Post 1, Fav 1″ group just for fun. I like flickr website, and I browse it all day to find some beautiful pics. Maybe you know how i can find photo with most viewed status ?
Gedas: Right, but understand that people who are faving your pictures from that group are not faving them because they like them, they are doing it because you’re faving theirs which is not what flickr had in mind when they built the faving mechanism.
http://flickr.com/photos/jakerome/1340683673/
Interestingness!
Gedas: I rest my case. That proves my point beautifully. And, the sheep continued to look at and fav that very photo. It never ends.
People who game Explore make me sick. Absolutely sick.
jakerome: Best to avoid it then. Works for me. And, I’m now avoiding many groups that make me sick too. Works like a charm.
Maybe I was too subtle with my ironic statement.
Aha, now that you put a link up, a bit less subtle. I love it that your “anti-explore” image “made” explore, pretty fast I’d bet. Fun.
Could not agree with you more Richard. When I got started on flickr, I could not wait to check on my comments and was beside myself when my image made it to explore. It all seems worthless now though. Now the process itself has become more fun then the end result, although the end result does make the process more satisfying.
Nomad: I’m fine with flickr building social tools to encourage people to keep posting images (trying to “make” explore) but I’m less fine with what that does to one’s photography over time: gee what “catchy” thing can I do to my images to get them a lot of attention fast. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not photography, it’s working the social network.
Indeed Explore, like photo contests, is as good a way to motivate and practice taking and posting photos. I’d like to relate how I got caught in the popularity thing and got into a quandary. Can the opinion of others be so strong as to alter my judgment, or was my judgment off to start with?
Seeing how overly sweet and cliche (to me) banal photos seemed to ineluctably gather interest, both in Explore and elsewhere in Flickr (besides pron of course), I decided to create a supersweet photo as an experiment. I cropped a photo of a ‘normal’ rose to prettify it.( http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycandre/1390633705/ )
I did not think much of it as a photo, just that it would please, disappointed as I was that photos I thought were better artistically were not gathering much attention just because of their lack of catchiness.
Turns out it was very popular indeed, and has changed my opinion, a photo *can* be catchy and have artistic merit too. Or did popularity change my mind ?
André: I think popularity changed your mind.
How did you determine what would be a “supersweet” photo? Your experience with flickr, of course.
You admittedly didn’t think much of the photo before you posted it, it became popular, you now think it has artistic merit (because of its popularity)?
Seems to me that your experience is an example of popularity changing someone’s view of their own work, which, isn’t always a bad thing but of course, any time you’re in need of some social stoking you have what you think (and may be) a formula to get it. I’m just not sure that figuring out how to play social networks is the same thing as growth as a photographer. Hey, what do I know? Maybe they’re the same thing. But, I tend to doubt it.
Thanks for posting and for sharing your thoughts on this, it’s a fascinating topic and I’m always happy to revisit it.
Richard
Great write up on the evils of Flickr. When I started, as has been said in other responses to this, I was excited by comments and the opinions of other people but soon realised what was actually going on and that it meant very little and that 90% of the comments are without any written input from the person leaving them. This made me carry out an experiment with my last two images. I overprocessed them to Flickr standards, added a garish orange sky and hit the quid pro quo groups with a vengeance. Guess which are my most popular images on Flickr…I average between 5-20 comments normally, these two are heading for the hundreds but there are few that I place any value on apart from people whose work I had previously seen and with whom I have corresponded on techniques.
Chris
Chris: thanks for the thoughtful comment and for sharing your experiment.
Of course, your experiment would be a great marketing tool if you were selling things and those people were buyers, but as a way to get thoughtful feedback on work, flickr’s tools and especially Explore aren’t necessarily useful.
The part that worries me is that many folks (unlike you) really let popularity go to their heads and it drives what they do on flickr. It’s a shame to see that if the person might otherwise be a great photographer.
Again, thanks for weighing in on this, your comment is right on the money.
Yes, I agree with your article too. For the first year I had photos on flickr it was simply a free way to share photos with friends back home in the UK (I’d moved to NZ) and flickr was a substitute for some webspace that had been included with my connection fee back in the UK. Because I had a film SLR and wasn’t taking many photos, I scarcely logged on to flickr for about a year. When I next had some photos to upload, I discovered that the flickr membership had grown a lot (between July 04 and September 05, approximately) and that there were some comments on my photos.
Since I was in the market for a displacement activity (I should have been finishing my Masters) I started commenting all over the place on people photos. Nothing to do with trying to game Explore, just avoiding writing essays. Of course, various of my photos were then captured by this algorithm and ‘made it into Explore’. Without a digital camera to enable constant uploading of new photos, this soon died away, and I simply carried on commenting on photos that I liked.
I took a long break from flickr between August 06 and April 07 (the social side of flickr intervened and then burnt me badly), and since I’ve been back I’ve been much more restrained in my commenting. I browse a lot, but generally only comment on what I think are really outstanding – or genuinely interesting – images. This is partly because I think that I’m becoming creatively ‘burnt out’ by looking at too many images on flickr. Because of this, in spite of the fact that my photos are now a lot better (I took some photography classes while on my break from flickr), I don’t get a lot of traffic to my photostream. This doesn’t bother me much – the few contacts that mean something to me will generally visit. If any others do, that’s nice but not important to me.
The exception has been my most recent image. I don’t think it is technically better than some of the others, or has more interesting subject matter, but because I had been on a brief commenting and faving spree, this image miraculously shot up the Explore rankings for about a day (the groups it is in now I added it to after it had sunk out of Explore).
It confirmed to me more clearly than ever before that Explore is nothing to do with the intrinsic merit of an image, and entirely a reflective measure of the extent to which a person comments and faves others images. Apparently, Yahoo is seeking a patent on ‘interestingness’, which it would only do if it thought there was some commercial value to it, rather than simply a bit of fun.
It would be interesting to know if Yahoo sells the advertising space on pages displaying photos that rank highly in Explore at higher prices than those that don’t rank in the first few pages of each day’s listing. While ‘pro’ flickr member will not see the adverts, there’s probably a fair few free account holders who will.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s shaped what I take photos of in anyway, but I have, over time, become much more selective about the images I choose to post on flickr. That’s not because I’m chasing an Explore ranking (because I’m still frugal with my comments and faves normally), but because I’ve a better idea now of what makes a good photo. Or even one that is simply interesting in the original sense of the word!
Andrew: I remember you from the old days and I think we were contacts back then but since you dropped off I might have cleaned you out of my contact list. I just added you back, for the simple reason that your post here is the most articulate declaration of what’s going on with this social site I’ve read yet. Thank you for taking the time to write it (putting off your thesis yet again?).
Given what is now going on with Microsoft and Yahoo, some of this stuff may be moot, but the larger social internet questions and how they interact with one’s personal creativity and self image aren’t. Those ideas will be alive as long as we have an internet.
Thanks again.
Thanks Richard – not putting off a thesis this time!
I agree that regardless of the Microsoft bid for Yahoo, these larger questions remain. We’ve seen a few obvious memes sweep through flickr (fake tilt-shift, HDR) which a lot of people experiement with in their own image making. It’s also clear that there’s a general tendency (amongst most) towards the eyecatching rather than the images that require us to take time to think and analyse them in order to gain meaning, and that people then tend towards also producing these sorts of images. But that is hardly surprising – this is the internet and the age of the quick click-through after all, quite apart from all the eye-popping advertising we encounter in the rest of our daily lives. I’m sure post-modernism would suggest that it’s impossible for us not to be shaped as authors by the reception given to our work.
What has suprised me in this most recent brush with Explore is how obvious it is now that many many people surf flickr (consume images) not via contacts or groups but by looking through the Explore archives for each day – far more pronounced than I had previously experienced. Do they then find a photographic style they like and branch out of Explore into these visual sidestreams, or do they continuously search for the next bit of random eye candy?
Gustavo G has done some interesting analysis of group links on flickr and other social network analysis of the site, but I doubt the API is open enough for anyone other than flickr admins to track people’s surfing habits terribly accurately. Nor would it be desirable probably, on privacy grounds. But I’m sure a PhD is waiting to be written by selecting a decent sample of flickr users and tracking their participation in the site. After all, if anyone can tune into the RSS feed of comments we make on others photos, those images we add to our favorites collection, how we participate in groups and what images we post ourselves, I’m sure enough data is available to make some kind of analysis of the impact our viewing has on our photos.
Now that would be a thesis that’s dangerously open to displacement activity!
Andrew: Running counter or parallel to the beginner and even more experienced flickr user’s fascination with explore is the more experienced user’s “cool to be smug” attitude that having anything to do with Explore or any of flickr’s social tools is slumming.
I first encountered this attitude in the Utata group where members were there is a rule against posting in two many groups, arguably to limit people to posting just in the Utata group but also to modify behavior toward what they consider good flickr citizenship: not groping for connections but being self-confident and striking out into the virtual world.
The problem with these attitudes is that they come from people who already have established social networks and they’re looking backward at new people who are just starting out and are desperate to make connections. It’s like the folks who have been in the United States for a while looking down their noses at more recent imigrants for their wild hairdos and big earings.
So, running counter to the fascination with popularity is the legit use of flickr’s tools to get found and/or, make connections.
If there’s one thing that ticks me off it’s people who are smug. Witness my disdain for Hillary Clinton (independent of my liking Obama): she’s smug and it just ain’t cool.
We’re in agreement again. I think that those groups can be useful to get established with a network of contacts. You can post the best photos in the world on flickr and be ignored by all if you don’t go and comment on others’ photos, so using those groups to begin with is understandable (although I would probably build up the network through groups based on shared geography and interests myself).
I find it harder to take in when a well established photographer continues to participate in these groups. Is it for fear that these groups are the only source of views and favourites for their photos? Whatever the motivation, while I might still add one of their photos as a favourite, I’m now disinclined to make a comment on their images, because I don’t want to be bombarded with lots of ‘viewing and faving’ group icons while trying to track any possible dialogue on comments streams.
But the smugness is pretty intolerable, I agree. Having a group which cares about the quality of the group pool is one thing, punishing people for posting their photo to other groups is quite different. Like all social spaces cliques are easily created. Reminds me of a Peter Gabriel song, Not One of Us.
Agree with you about Clinton too. Although I don’t have a vote, one of the things I really want to hear from all the remaining candidates is that they’ll fundamentally reform campaign finance and the electoral college. We could be in the crazy position at the end of Obama having more elected delegates, but Hillary getting the nomination because of ‘super-delegates’ or because she goes to court to overturn the ban on Florida delegates.
Andrew: you read my mind man. I won’t comment on an image that I like if the photographer has posted it to groups that force comments (123, etc.) or if there are too many dancing icons that will clutter my feed. I do care about my feed as I use NetNewsWire to pretty much track everything I read online, including flickr.
Even groups that try to keep their photo pools “high quality” like some of the bokeh groups get to arguing about what bokeh is and is not in the most amazingly insular ways. It looks (to me) like an ego trip of the admin, getting off on the fact that he (it’s rarely a “she”) can accept or reject people at will.
Anyway, these are the bad things. Flickr’s social tools are generally neutral, it’s how they’re used that gives them these odd flavors so with a lot of users odd assortments of human nature express themselves over time. Certainly competitiveness gets expressed quickly, as well as insecurity (smug to be cool) and more.
Well put Andrew. I’m new to Flickr, but an old hand in the photo game, and my observation after the first few months is that much of Flickr is like the old camera club (in the UK at least) mentality writ large. Many people seem to shoot formula pics to fit formula groups – which seems to me to be against the natural grain of ‘quality’ photography in which the photographer hones their work to the point they are satisfied, then shows it to the world, for good or ill. That self belief (as does the lack of) shows through in the work, and while the audience may not like what’s on offer, they can at least respect the effort.
I am constantly perplexed that those of my images that do well on Flickr are the ‘easy’ ones, while those that are more challenging are ignored. In the real world in which I work, the response from peers and clients is generally exactly the reverse. I see the same with others photo stream’s; they just fail to click with the ‘right’ crowd. Flickr is the equivalent of the “that’s nice” you get from your Mum when you go fishing for compliments on your first shot of Tower Bridge.
Sadly, while Flickr is entertaining and certainly has many many great photographers and images, the apparent pursuit of standardised mediocrity from the hive mind doesn’t take photography forward at all.
Eric: “pursuit of standardised mediocrity from the hive mind doesn’t take photography forward at all”
Right, of course, but then, as long as our expectations are realistic flickr can be a fantastic place to build a community of friends and learn things about photography. One just has to keep the social parts separate from the photographic parts and not let them leak into one another too much.
I’m an old hand at flickr and an older hand at the photo game and there has never been anything quite like flickr for easily sharing photography with a worldwide audience. But, one just has to understand that said audience aren’t all worldly photo critics and some aren’t even nice people. That said, some are excellent photographers and some are exceptionally nice people.
I love flickr, I just try to keep it in the right perspective (for me).
Thomas Hawk: Top 10 Tips for Getting Attention on Flickr, All Fresh and New for 2008.
Fun stuff, more fodder for the discussion.
Well i would love to make explore at least once just so i could have more than 3 people actually looking at my photos! I don’t think my photos are too bad but i hardly ever seem to get any views…let alone a favourite or a comment!…and then i come across shots all the time that i think are no better than mine and they have been favourited over 100 times! I now wonder what is the point in uploading any of my shots if no one is going to even see them or give me a little bit of feedback.
Mardi, here’s a tip, you should have put the URL to your flickr account in the URL field of your comment here. That way anyone reading could click on your name and go to your account. You’d get a few more views, maybe more.
Simply posting to flickr without interacting may not get you much social action. You really do need to take part in groups and find contacts so that you have a small virtual community who look at each other’s images.
As I say above and elsewhere, I don’t quid pro quo comment but I do comment on things I like or on things I have something to say about.
I look at a lot of images every day on flickr and many of them get comments out of me. I am also active in many groups which also lead people back to my photo stream.
Comment again here, use your flickr account URL. See what happens.
Recently I acquired a scanner and scanned in some old photos I took when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I Was very creative in those days and had one or two, as I thought, good pictures that ought to feature in Explore. The best ones were in black and white. To my surprise, and delight, one I considered to be my best made Explore! This restored my faith a little as it did not conform at all to the usual ‘formula’.
Having said this I know that many of what I consider to be my best pictures have never been in explore.
Sean: Congratulations. The question is, what does it mean to make explore? Does it mean your image is great, or popular, or what?
I think your image is quite nice, but I’d think so whether or not it was popular on flickr. The only way to “make” explore is to be popular on flickr and that doesn’t necessarily mean the photograph is a great one, just a popular one.
Thanks Richard.
The Flickr game is hard work – I find I have to comment and comment to get people to look at my images and it is usually 3 comments made to 1 comment received ratio – it is the element I least like about Flickr but I guess it is necessary. Explore is fun – and I try to make sure I have set up the ancillary elements to make it happen – tags, timing etc. but I do not change the way I photograph or do anything to the image itself to try to make explore – I just try to make the most interesting image I can.
Now, comments etc. and views probably do influence what I create and post – but at the end of the day, I think that has actually improved my photography, and made it more interesting over time.
What has disappointed me most in Flickr is the social element – I have not yet found a way to make it more than the shallow polite back and forth of commenting. Any ideas?
Thanks for this thread.
Andrew: You’re right, flickr is a social environment. The question is, how much energy and time will you put into that social environment to increase your popularity or simply make new friends? How far would you go to gain more comments, favs, contacts?
Do you think “making” explore is an achievement?
My problem with explore is that it’s the result of a lot of attention paid to the social piece of flickr which may or may not have anything to do with photography. Again, nothing wrong with this but it ought not be confused with making great photographs.
If you immerse in flickr: join groups, comment on people’s work, post new things daily and keep it up over time you can become popular whether or not your photographs are interesting. People on flickr want to make connections and flickr is a great environment for doing it. If you keep at it that will happen. Just try to keep your photography compartmentalized so you’re not swayed. You can’t say yet whether this will happen because you’ve not connected with many people. In time, when you get lots of attention you’ll have a chance to look back and see if it’s affected you and how.
@Andrew: I see where you are coming from and i completely agree with you, however there is a significant aspect of flickr that no other place offers. Selfless people helping others to explore photography.
3 years ago i stumbled upon a man’s flickr photostream and i asked him “how do you focus things in the front and blur things at the background” and he said “aperture, dilip”. Ever since then i’ve bombarded him with questions and learnt a lot.
I’ve learnt loads of things, graduated from a point and shoot to a Cano DSLR System, even decided on using prime lenses mostly instead of zooms and considering going full frame in a short while.
I’m not saying im a great photographer or even a good one, nor is it about the equipment but what im trying to prove is how flickr has taken me from point A to B. Today im commenting on this mans blog, yes.. that was indeed richard and i know him as a very close friend and we exchange other random things from politics to movie reviews apart from photography.
In fact ive come to know other fantastic photographers through richard and have had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of them and spending a lot of time with them shooting pics. Tremendous opportunities to learn and in fact learn from the very best out there.
I don’t think any amount of money would have given me these kind of opportunities to explore photography with such passion and of course have such a personal touch to it too. My take is keep away from the quid pro quo comment groups and post in groups that specifically interest you.
Flickr is a great place to learn and make friends along the way. Its a treat if you ask me, it just depends on how we want to use it and what we want to make out of it.
Thank you Dilip, your comment here made my day (so far, it’s early).
Had you not aggressively pushed the social piece of flickr we might never have met so that supports a piece of Andrew’s point. However, I doubt you found me through Explore, more likely through Carlos Camacho or one of our other contacts.
So, having a collection of contacts who have other contacts is great and one can feed the social part of flickr handily without going overboard and pushing into focus on Explore.
And, lastly, how that social aspect affects one’s photography is the piece that interests me. I think it’s best to keep those things as compartmentalized as possible, allowing each person to run out their own ideas without considering how popular they will be.
Of course, it’s always good to learn from others but that’s quite different from copying them. The problem with too much attention to group think is that it leads to a predominant style and this makes things stagnate.
It’s a balance and I think you’ve handled it very well as have others. Some people however, are obsessed with “making” Explore and this ruins their experience of flickr.
@Richard: I never intended to say i found you through explore. It was a random stumble. I think i was looking for flower pictures when i found one of your 100mm shots. I found carlos, mamen, gary through you. First it was carlos, then mamen and finally gary.
What i was trying to say was simply how the social networkking aspects of flickr help someone grow from nothing to something worth cherishing.
Dilip: I totally agree. However, my point is that it’s tough to keep the difference between social popularity and great photography compartmentalized.
Great post. It’s like a mirror to everyone who uses Flickr. And its a trap that is not hard to fall into. I’m guilty of it to some extent. I try and comment on only pictures that interest me, or have a conversation (social networking aspect of flickr) with contacts. But getting your photo onto explore gives you a thrill, albeit a cheap thrill, if you have tried to “game” the system. And what sometimes gets to me is, when a picture that your really proud of never gets the attention you think it deserves. It’s indeed tough to separate the popularity from the photography.
Sandeep: Right, you got it and as long as you keep getting it it won’t greatly affect the quality of your work. I keep a loop running in the background attempting to separate what I like from what I think might be popular. One has to be vigilant!
Richard, I followed a link to this post from a photo I was viewing today. That person had in turn commented on a a photo that I posted here . My discussion revolved around exactly these same issues.
I have been with Flickr about a year and a half, and there is no doubt in my mind that I have learned and grown alot. I initially joined and posted to alot of groups, otherwise who will see the photos?
As time went on, and I established plenty of contacts, the need to post to groups lessened. The only ones I post to are the bokeh ones, or the camera/lens specific, a few themed day of the week ones, and a couple flower groups.
I’ve had some of the same contacts for a long time, and the explore game has gotten out of hand lately. My pic with the commentary has to do with the new groups that are popping up wherein the sole purpose is to get into explore. The members fave and comment on EVERYTHING in the pool, and multiple times too. You will see the same members constantly on the first few explore pages, no matter what they post. Even some of my contacts I feel expect their shots to be in explore every day. They have an incredible amount of faves and comments within the first 30-60 minutes of posting. And I can’t for the life of me figure out how they keep up with it all.
I totally agree with what Andrew NZ said above “It confirmed to me more clearly than ever before that Explore is nothing to do with the intrinsic merit of an image, and entirely a reflective measure of the extent to which a person comments and faves others images.”
SO is there an answer to how else explore can work? I’d like to see it happen. I’d like to see some other people get a chance to get their shot into explore for a change, instead of the same bunch all the time because they have played the game. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of explores, and yes I have posted screenshots. But the thrill has worn off, it’s too much of a chore to keep up and comment on everyone. I want to spend my time on Flickr discovering other photographers whose work inspires me instead of commenting all day.
And SO true about the quality of peoples work suffering. I have one contact that had her first few explore shots with her macro waterdrops. And you guessed it, now all she churns out are the exact same types of shots, and they continue to make explore, usually on page 1 or 2 every single time. And each shot looks almost like the one before it. So….is she growing as an artist? Not really, the explore bug has bitten to hard.
I’m so glad I found you post, and it is still garnering attention after all this time!
It helps to reinforce in me what I have been feeling for the last few months.
Sylvia: I’m glad you found my post too and congratulations on your popularity on flickr. It sounds to me like you enjoy that popularity and the social aspect of flickr and if I were you I would not confuse that with what you’re doing with your photography. In other words, take your pictures and post them but at the same time, nurture your flickr social scene if that makes you happy.
It’s where those two things overlap that causes problems. Taking pictures to please your social audience and drive your own popularity may not be the best way to grow as a photographer and artist.
Even if explore couldn’t be gamed, popularity has its limits on coming up with interesting and creative work. The wisdom of crowds can be limited and flickr crowds tend not to be all that worldly about the visual arts. So, in the end, confusing flickr popularity with photographic excellence might be a problem. Maybe better to have other groups who one shares creative work with, groups with a totally different perspective, like galleries, other artists, other online forums and more.
Good luck with your reflection, I’m sure you’ll recover quickly from flickr burnout.
Isn’t this true for all artistic endeavor? Any artist that achieves ‘fame’ or notoriety has to some degree played the social game either by accident or design.
I’m not sure I agree with that as a general rule Dimitri but it’s certainly true in some cases.
But, the social tools available on flickr can be played without having much art to show or share. One can become popular on flickr with little or no artistic credibility at all.
There’s something about these kinds of tools that is bothersome, to me anyway.
Hey, I still use flickr and enjoy the social scene there. I simply try to keep it separate from my thinking about my own photography.
Your article and the comments were an extremely interesting read Richard, and I read it all. I don’t even remember how I got here now…
Obviously, as of yet, there is really no better way to gauge the quality of a photo if such a thing can even be gauged at all. Anyone who feels Explore is a true representation of quality imagery should reconsider. But flickr has managed to weed the photos that catch your eye from the photos that don’t. And as many have mentioned above, in today’s quick fix society popping off the page is about the only way to get a person’s attention.
Personally, I have also been bitten by the explore bug to some degree. On January 1st 2009, I started 365 and I have learned more about photography in the last 76 days then I did in the last 3 years.
I never begin my photo process thinking, what will get me into Explore, what will get me tons of favorites and comments? But I must admit, it does drive me to try my best, to outdo my last photo. Call me insecure or lacking in confidence, but I derive great satisfaction and pleasure from feedback be positive or negative. Don’t we all? Isn’t that why we share our photos, writing and music in the first place?
It was mentioned that there are flickrites who simply surf Explore. That surprised me because it’s something I’ve never done or even considered. Explore is something I get exposed to daily through other people tagging, labeling and commenting explore directly on their explored photo page, or through threads dedicated to explored photos. You’re right, Explore really is worn as a trophy, and there are those flickerites who take photos for Explore and those who take pictures for themselves. I like to believe I’m one of the latter.
Also, a comment on the mandatory posting groups with all the obnoxious icons… I absolutely detest them!!! I won’t lie, when I first joined flickr I entered some photos in Hit Miss or Maybe as I craved feedback at a time I was getting none. But these days stay far away from such groups. It’s become tackier than MySpace with all those animated gifs and oversized group icons. It’s nothing more than billboards all over someone else’s work. I even saw a photo texture posted once where poster mandated that you favorite his image if you choose to download and use it.
I’ve found the fastest way to get feedback on flickr is to give feedback. I do comment on images that I would consider nothing special, but then my comments are in response to the person rather than the image itself. Now I have formed a solid group of flicker friends who produce work I admire and enjoy. I’ve even collaborated with a few of them! If my work finds its way into Explore then its simply a bonus.
-Comatosed
Comatosed:
Flickr doesn’t weed at all, it keeps track of comments, favs, and views over time. This has nothing to do with the photograph, only the social tools surrounding it. There are many reasons why people comment and fav things but as you might know from your experience with flickr, the #1 reason is highly saturated colors and high contrast. In other words, images that are processed in a certain way (some might call them over processed or over cooked) get more attention than similar photographs that show a bit less over saturation and contrast.
This tends to spiral up over time as people learn what makes for popular photos: when there’s a choice of which photos to post, the choice is many times swayed by photos that adhere to what will be popular.
The more social you are on flickr coupled with the more you amp up decent photos, the more popular you will become.
I too have a solid group of flickr friends who I’ve known for years and while we each have our own circle of friends and we each have our own styles, we all agree that paying too much attention to the social aspect of flickr isn’t the best way to improve one’s photography.
All of that said, I’m delighted you’ve found flickr a good way to improve your photography and I wish you the best of luck with it.
Richard, awesome article about how Flickr keeps track of “Explore” and using its “Interestingness Algorithm”. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself. I’ve started photography only last year and recently upgraded to Flickr PRO last month. I find it hard myself not to want more comments, views and especially being faved. Sadly, it has become a gauge or symbol of achievement for aspiring photographers like me but it’s also important not to lose track of what photography is about.
I find Flickr to be a good resource to learn from other people’s pictures especially by reviewing the EXIF data and sharing tips,tricks. Joining groups and discussions can be very educational as well and i’m happy to learn other things you can do with your camera. I have started to add favorites to other people’s pictures as i did read some article about how to increase your exposure in Flickr community. Later on, adding faves became more than that and it made me further appreciate other people’s work and letting them know about it instead of just giving short comments and such.
The good side about not making it to Explore yet (sourgraping mode) is that it continues to drive my creativity and to take my photography to the next level. Regardless if i make it or not, the journey would be worth it as it will benefit me to improve my skills over time.