The Flickr photo; it's a "style" ???

[morgan]

I like flickr, but the NYT article made me a little ill, especially the part about HCB at the end. Without a historical context and zero knowledge, his famous shot fails for the masses? I don't know, it kind of reeks of mob mentality and ignorance (about so many things). I love flickr's explosion of creativity, there's some truly great stuff on there, both digital and film. But tailoring image processing for flickr success just bothers me a bit. It's like fishing for compliments or something. And like most online communities that have wide appeal, you have to take comments with a grain of salt, both positive and negative. What does it really mean? For the woman in the article, it got her work, which is great. But it could be easy to go down the rabbit hole and lose yourself trying to create things that will have mass appeal. I just had a photo up on a flickr used as a photo of the day for a boston-based news/events site and I was psyched, I probably wouldn't have gotten that if it weren't for flickr, but I don't think it would change how I approach my images.

In any case, this is a very interesting discussion.

 

[amateriat]

The Flickr "style" isn't too far afield of what a lot of Web-bound images have been for a while: shiny, poppy, super-tight-cropped and with the occasional dose of artful (or accidental) camera shake. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with that; some of those photos (including those of Guoleifsdottir's) are in fact pretty good. And more power to her for landing a gig with Toyota.

But, just as with food, a balanced diet is a good thing, and a little cotton candy goes a hell of a long way. A lot of the more subtle work that I like (and also create) doesn't "work" on Flickr, which seems geared more toward bite-sized images that require more punch to get attention. (Imagine being on a beach with a few hundred other people: stripped buck-naked and with a bullhorn in hand, you'll get plenty of attention, but otherwise....)

For me, the most interesting Flickr stuff has come from fellow RFf members, by itself enough reason to love it The bulk of what I see on Flickr isn't all that different from what I suffered through for years in many mainstream photography mags (just a lot more PS noodling). Just as more camcorders doesn't suddenly create more Martin Scorceses (or even more Ben Stillers...I'm trying to be generous here), more still cameras don't necessarily more good pictures. Nothing wrong with trying, though. 🙂


- Barrett

 

[georgef]

If the medium is the message, and the medium is part of a corporation who's revenue depends on visitors and site traffic, and by way of viral advertising to gain market share they create a social networking site of amateur and professional photographers then by virtue of transitive property....wait, I dunno what I'm saying, I just lost my train of thought. I'm going to go watch commercials on TV now and shotgun a beer in my living room.

McLuhan's detriment was quite more complex than just a tagline -there is brilliant thought behind his explanations that are worth the read.

 

[georgef]

colour films changed the way photog was viewed in the BW days. "more colour" is changing the way colour is viewed now...next time around, something else will come to challenge that!
It seems that given the timeframe each one of us got into photography, we have a different take on what the "norm" or the "correct" is.
I wonder if what I think as the "better" art of photography is only so because of the conditioning I have received from my film days!