Flickr and criticism posts

Splog

Splog

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Steve
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Has anyone ever seen negative feedback about their shots on Flickr?

I started uploading about seven weeks ago and have had about 16,000 views, loads of comments and faves! all but one have been good and positive! is this normal? Actually I love Flckr but does it help with photography?
 
I said this on another thread. You get what you put in and it all depends on what groups you use and who you associate with on the site. You could end up with flickr being almost like a MySpace for photos. Thankfully for me I get some pretty decent crit. If you take Flickr seriously you'll get a lot from it. If you don't then you'll not find anything useful.

If you have pictures of yourself in various MySpace poses don't expect to attract the kind of attention you're looking for in terms of improving your photography, let's put it that way.
 
I've seen some truly awful photos on Flickr with glowing praise posted, on the whole Flickr's not really about crit,it's a social networking site.

Right,I'm off to post some crit on KayJay's Flickr stream now :lol:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
I've seen some truly awful photos on Flickr with glowing praise posted, on the whole Flickr's not really about crit,it's a social networking site.
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Most of the photos (got to be like 80% or more) of Flickr are complete crap. I've seen soooooo many that are praised. It just shows that most people on Flickr don't know a good photo when they see one.

I see no point in posting giant animated GIFs in the comments too, why the hell should anyone care that you saw whatever photo in whatever group?
 
8utters said:
It just shows that most people on Flickr don't know a good photo when they see one.
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Frankly, I think that's *******s. Surely whether or not a photo is good is entirely subjective? What may be a bad photo to you might be a perfectly good one to someone else.
 
KayJay said:
Frankly, I think that's *******s. Surely whether or not a photo is good is entirely subjective? What may be a bad photo to you might be a perfectly good one to someone else.
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Spot on.

Also, I use flickr simply for free hosting.

I don't tag my images, so hopefully no one will find them.
This means A) no one looking for free photos and B) no stupid glittery 'THIS PIC IS SO LOVELY OMG YOU GET AN SPARKLY AWARD LOL'
 
foodpoison said:
Spot on.

Also, I use flickr simply for free hosting.

I don't tag my images, so hopefully no one will find them.
This means A) no one looking for free photos and B) no stupid glittery 'THIS PIC IS SO LOVELY OMG YOU GET AN SPARKLY AWARD LOL'
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You realise that now we're going to seek your pics out and plaster the comments sections with awards? :lol:
 
I've got some pretty honest feedback on there. Mostly from contacts who I've met in person, or at least had a fair amount of online banter with.

It's hard to know who actually wants honest crit though. You get a lot of people who are rather touchy about being told that they are not the world's finest photographer. Provoke one of these people and you risk angry letters from not only them but half their 'you scratch my back' contact list.
 
Come to think of it... I haven't had a single bad word uttered about my shots on flickr either. I use it for hosting mostly :)
 
I've posted alot on flickr recently... but dont seem to get many views... 20 a day if I'm lucky... How can I improve my hit rate on the site??? Is it all about tagging which I dont think I've done that well up to now???

Any other tips???
 
I mainly use it for hosting full res images :thumbs:

But I do take part in groups and stuff to get my photos seen by a wider audience, and also there are some fantastic photographers on there from whom I can draw inspiration.
 
I agree that the majority of comments are simply pat on the back and award type stuff.

I've got a few contacts that offer constructive crit. I return the same compliment to them.
 
All of these criticisms of Flickr are absolutely spot on.

Conversely though:
- it's a great tool for hosting your images (as others have pointed out)
- it can be great fun! (if you don't just cynically use it for comment grabbing!)
- it can generate a lot of hits for your REAL portfolio site / blog (my Google Analytics pages show loads of referrals from Flickr)
- you can make some great contacts (as long as you don't just add every single person who comments on your images - as lots of people do!)
- Flickr pages achieves very high Google rankings, so people can find you
- Newcomers can learn a lot from looking at the EXIF data on people's images
- you can laugh hysterically at the hideous radioactive HDR images with 300+ comments, 27 shiny awards etc! ;-)

I'm not a massive Flickr fan - I'm just giving a counter argument!
 
Kay Jay has it spot on. Quality and crit value depends on the groups you add your images too.

Just be thankful Flickr is nothing like Youtube, the comment ethic you see there is abysmal. :|
 
Freester said:
I agree that the majority of comments are simply pat on the back and award type stuff.

I've got a few contacts that offer constructive crit. I return the same compliment to them.
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You could not extend me the crit too could you??? And I'll do the same also!
 
I think flickr is awesome. For what it is ie not a critical appreciation society but rather an online venue where different types of people can see one another's work, that doesn't mean that it's all worth seeing just that people can. I try to find groups that allow small amounts of uploads a day to prevent flooding and generally have good work in them.

Having said that I don't get a lot of feedback :(
 
flickr is not a critique site, it s a photosharing/hosting domain where people can upload holiday photos to share with familys, host images to post online or for TV's/crossdressers to show off their genitals lol
 
People should really count themselves lucky that they do get views and comments.

I have been on there only a little while with only about 10 or so images on there and have very little feedback or even views.

Is there anyway to get more views and comments? Obviously the quality and quantity of the photos will help but does anyone know any tips?

I just put my flickr link as my facebook status...
 
PMK said:
People should really count themselves lucky that they do get views and comments.

I have been on there only a little while with only about 10 or so images on there and have very little feedback or even views.
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You need to add your images to group pools if you want people to 'notice' them.
 
PMK said:
Is there anyway to get more views and comments? Obviously the quality and quantity of the photos will help but does anyone know any tips?
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In order to get all those half baked "WOW!" comments you need to:

a) post your photo to as many flickr groups as you possibly can

b) go through those groups and stick lots of moronic comments onto everyone else's photos like 24x7

It is the facebook of the photography world, its just about comment whoring.

Most of the people in my flickr contacts have turned out to be on here anyway, so I get very very little from it these days and probably won't renew my sub this time around.
 
desantnik said:
It is the facebook of the photography world, its just about comment whoring.

Most of the people in my flickr contacts have turned out to be on here anyway, so I get very very little from it these days and probably won't renew my sub this time around.
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That's certainly not my opinion or experience with Flickr.

As said, you get what you want out of it, so far I've connected with a Finnish strobist group through flickr and have made some valuable contacts, I have received great advice and also made some very good friends. I've learned from attending the meetings/workshops that the group have organized and I've even got a few new clients from this too.

Not all groups are about 'comment whoring' or useless banter.

It's up to you what groups you add your images too.

It's up to you to get something positive out of it.
 
I'm experimenting with pimping an image I've put on flickr. I've just added it to about a million groups and want to see what happens. It's an ok image, not great. I want to see how many flashing awards I can get!

But agreed, flickr is what you want out of it. It seems you can pimp yourself for millions of awards or just use it for the community. There's some great flickr groups, such as Leeds flickr group which is very active and actually do things and have meet ups. That's the side of flickr I'm more interested in (although I've been pretty slack in going to many Leeds meet ups).
 
Merovingian said:
Agree.

About 75% is complete tat posted by high end dslr owners who take weekend snaps.
The remainder is top shelve and gets its praised comments from the 75% from above!
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So many bitter comments, which leads me to assume, just like the assumption made in the above comment, that these people have had bad experiences on Flickr? Or just upset that people have the freedom to buy whatever they want.

yoda.jpg


Sour grapes it seems hmm?
 
KayJay said:
So many bitter comments, which leads me to assume, just like the assumption made in the above comment, that these people have had bad experiences on Flickr? Or just upset that people have the freedom to buy whatever they want.

yoda.jpg


Sour grapes it seems hmm?
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That 5D MKII of yours doesn't half take noisy pics, judging by the above :lol:
 
KayJay said:
So many bitter comments, which leads me to assume, just like the assumption made in the above comment, that these people have had bad experiences on Flickr? Or just upset that people have the freedom to buy whatever they want.
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I dunno, probably for me it was more about how my reasons/expectations have changed about my posting of my photography on the internet.

Flickr seemed like a good idea back then, now I don't think its for me. That could be because I've found it childish or it could be because the kind of discussion I want for my photography is better served in more specialist sites.

To be quite frank, since I've been on TP I don't bother with Flickr - and you can quote me on that! :rules:
 
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