Sure, there are 10’s of thousands of boring, wonderful, bad, sincere, clichéd, real, etc. images on Flickr and you could probably subjectively flip any of those descriptions based on who’s viewing any one image. It’s many things to many people whether they consider themselves photographers or not.

Some people use Flickr to post almost every shot they take/scan since Flickr has organizational tools that can aid an offline edit. Some edit and over edit their images and want feedback, back pats, or simply another voice out there somewhere attached to a set of eyes seeing what they made. Flickr can’t be criticized as being one thing or the other because, as a tool and as a community, it ‘means’ something totally different depending on who you ask.

That’s why I don’t find real fault in Stephen Shore’s comments since they are (even more clearly in context) his point-of-view and were fed by his search for intimate, real, maybe even visceral images from regular people. Shore’s comments were a bit too full-stop but they are still valid.

Flickr continues to bug, entertain, evoke, bother, and provide a service for me every day. I dump all sorts of my own images on it — a few of which I really end up liking.

“re: the 4×5, agreed and it’s not like everyone using a 4×5 is producing exceptional work either. looking at a pic on the wall or on the web i never really find myself wondering what cam the photog used.”

indeed, not everyone using 4×5’s, 8×10’s, 5×7’s, or any other large format camera is by any means automatically ‘better’ than anyone else. i have seen plenty of bad view camera photos.

the main point is that it’s not the camera. edward weston made some pretty stellar pictures using a second hand lens he bought. some people make amazing pics with holgas. hell, i’ve seen camera phone pictures that i thought were exceptional. ya, it’s not all about the camera.

im not overly concerned with what camera was used when im looking at things either…although certain formats do have a certain look. but you can’t always tell, and that’s not the main point anyway. it’s all about the photo, the subject, the design, or whatever is being conveyed by the image. that’s what matters–to me at least.

cameras are tools, and each kind, size, style, or format has its applications and uses.

though i wasn’t referring to the graphic layout of flickr or the physical space of a gallery. i was referring to the pics themselves.

this is one of the major problems with flickr as well. some people have no conception of editing or projects.

“Had Cartier-Bresson had the technology we do now he would have probably taken a completely different shot, especially knowing the audience he was shooting for.”

———————

Am I the only one who has trouble with the overall visual interface of Flicker? (I need the small “e”) To me it is not at all like gallery hopping- When you have a real physical experience of going to different places, seeing different tangible physical prints, and speaking (in real time with the actual photographers. Looking at Flickr Pictures is just that- looking at photographs in the context of how they look on Flickr. Granted, it is a different kind of experience- however I don’t understand the tone of a lot of earlier comments in the first post about how Flickr is some kind of new revolution to supplant the established (dinosaur-like) Photographic Culture. To me, the framework of the site with the tags and contacts and smiley icons and avatar icons and pink and teal text and all that makes it hard for any image to rise past the site itself. Maybe my main problem is that I can’t just LOOK at a picture on Flickr, all I can do is See them in their overall context.