'Most interesting by'

This PHP utility by Isaías González pulls out the most interesting photos by any given Flickr user.

I’ve set up that link with my username, though what it has highlighted is that people seem to like my old photos the best. There are only three photos in that list from 2007 (at the time of writing this).

Now, obviously Flickr’s ‘interestingness’ isn't necessarily a good measure of quality – put something racy, newsworthy or controversial (or indeed a cute kitten) up there and it’s likely that the image will appear in the Explore section before long. But it does tell you whether or not people are looking at and commenting on the photographs.

I’m going to put it down to the fact that I used to spend far more time actually interacting with Flickr than I do now. And a lot of the stuff I’ve been photographing this year has been for some less creative and more commercial purpose.

But my mission is to overthrow every one of the images in that current list. I'm bored of them now!

News escalation on the web

I’m not going to comment on the story itself because that has been done to death, and the issue appears to have been resolved (at least with Flickr). But the series of events surrounding the alleged theft (and subsequent sale) of photographs from Flickr photographer Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir is a classic example of how the plight of one individual can end up on an international news site such as the BBC.

It started when Rebekka discovered that a company in the UK had been selling prints of her images without her knowledge or consent. In protest, she posted an image on her popular Flickr photostream and outlined her situation in the description.

There was an outpouring of support from the Flickr community who posted comments beneath the image. However, some apparently went to far with their use of language and threats were made toward the company at the centre of the row. Flickr staff subsequently deleted the photo as a result of the threatening comments.

To keep a long story short, suffice to say Rebekka was outraged at Flickr’s response. She posted this photo in protest, and the story was also picked up by blogger Thomas Hawk. This article was also submitted to Digg.com, one of several news sites where the more a story is read and given a ‘thumbs up’ by the reader, the higher up the news listings it moves. Within an hour or so it was on their homepage.

In addition to this, a thread was started on Flickr’s main forum, which again received hundreds of responses, and eventually there was an official response from Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield: “...we screwed up -- and for that I take full responsibility...”.

A couple of days ago I casually mentioned to a friend that this was the sort of thing that would end up on BBC News. This morning it has appeared in their technology section and I’d imagine it will be mentioned at some point on BBC News 24. Quite a lot of exposure starting with one photo on Flickr.

This sort of thing is happening all the time. Web 2.0 (I’m sick of that hearing name, but that’s the umbrella term) empowers the individual like never before. I think this means that companies and corporations need to be more careful with their dodgy dealings. Rather than just one disgruntled individual who is unable to afford a lawyer to deal with, the accused company, Only Dreemin, has been named on an international news website. That’s a whole lot of bad press.

This is a small company, and – I don’t know – they could be ruined by this. The question is, when it comes to larger corporations, do they really care about public opinion?

New Flickr Features

At long last, Flickr have added the much-requested sets of sets feature. And they've called it Collections. They've also added the ability for members to customise their homepage - you get the choice of showing small or medium photos, and also sets, collections or neither.

I've quickly thrown together some collections to try it out. I'll swap a lot of it around once I've given it more thought.

I like this update especially because I use Flickr for casual cameraphone / pub / night out / holiday photos as well as for more serious photography, and this allows me to further separate and organise the two.

Good stuff!

Inspiring photos on Flickr

 
 
Photos by rebekka

Note: If you're a Flickr user you probably already know all of this. Though you might still want to check out the links at the bottom.

If you're interested in photography but haven't spent much time browsing Flickr I urge you to do so. Among all the fuzzy shots of people's nights at the pub are some really great photographs.

A good place to start is the Explore page. Each time you refresh that page you'll get a different selection of the most 'interesting' shots from the last seven days. If you find a photo you really like click on the user's name and explore their photo sets. Then see who they have as a contact and check out their photos too. Before long you're bound to find some fantastic photographers.

One of Flickr's best known photographers is Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir from Iceland. The four photos at the top of this post are from her portfolio.

Here are a few more of my favourite Flickr photographers:

wiseacre photo
helveticaneue
cymagen
sam.d
p@ranoid
razorbern

And here's a link to my favourite shots from various Flickr users.