Flickr in 2024: Dead or Alive?

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ancient_mariner said:
I have noticed a general decline in crit and comments about pictures generally in the 10 years I've been here. It now feels like a community centred around photography rather than a bunch of photographers with a bit of community.
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When I first joined 17 years ago ( blimey was it really?) there were less than 2000 members, and it was a true community,
many people knew a lot of others, either as friends or became friends through many of the meets that were organised.
As the numbers increased, this declined, steadily.

Of course, there are those friends or people that became friends over time, that tend to stick to their own groups, forming little cliques.
It was inevitable that it would happen, as already mentioned, with people sticking to a couple of forums, and generally not straying out side of these.
c'est la vie.
 
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Ed Sutton said:
I think there's a difference between a post that's a picture with no explanation or whatever to it, and one that's a picture with it's backstory.

The former is only worth a 'like' at best, the latter may invite a more elaborate interaction.
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This seems a bit slanted towards your own way of working & perceptions. An image can be self-sufficient just as a painting or a sculpture can, and have a life purely in the realm of imagery that is self-sufficient, and without a word-based narrative. If I look at and assess a photo, at the core of my judgement of it is how it swings purely as an image. This isn't necessarily technical, as in blown highlights (aaargh!) or some other clumsiness, because an artistic truth can sometimes (even if it struggles), eclipse such concerns. I'm looking for the message and any meaning. Which is a composite thing, & can encompass a huge range of hybrid possibilities.

When is a photograph documentary? All photographs are - they are documentary of the processes used to make them, along with how they may reveal the mindset of their perpetrator and probably other stuff as well.

So let's be loose - but have some notion, in judging images, of purpose & integrity, and in some cases more than others, fun! And not just some partisan idea of 'I did this, therefore it is good', or that I used this camera or that one, likewise. That's just casual tokenism in the end.

Another pitfall is that a mastery of aesthetics in photography (as in all arts) doesn't necessarily lead to work of greater meaning, but often the opposite.

What an image 'says' may be in effect inherent in it but is also the product of a dialogue - whether between the image & its maker, between the image & its viewer, or between the maker & the viewer, but in all of these the image can be the conduit of some meaningful expression. To the maker, it's a kind of mirror. To a viewer, it can function as a an echo of themselves, or as a new discovery - or a hybrid of those.

It's a fluid field. But there are certain truths to aim for not just in the inherent nature of any given image, but also how it may be described. Yes, words can have a place in imaging, but often as just a commentary or afterthought rather than something that the image depends on. If an image needs a tag, does that make it a better image?

Each of us has a cultural consciousness, and the power of self-reflection.

Blimey, you made a stimulating post there, Dave.
 
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Marino said:
Im generally going off putting images online, it’s so easy to snatch other people’s photo nowadays.
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I have a suspicion that there's a very small minority who agree with that and a huge majority who do not care.

That, I think, is the case because very few people have ever considered photographs to be in the same category as paintings. I appreciate that those in the minority find such an attitude annoying, especially when so many people treat any photo on the internet as public property but that's the way human minds operate {shrug}.
 
droj said:
Another pitfall is that a mastery of aesthetics in photography (as in all arts) doesn't necessarily lead to work of greater meaning, but often the opposite.
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I suspect that most of us don't feel the need for each image to be imbued with a deep and intense meaning, rather we produce pictures that we enjoy and please us. If someone is going to post an image with artistic intentions then adding a couple of lines to that effect and why is generally quite helpful, else it may well just get treated as odd/failed.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I think there's a difference between a post that's a picture with no explanation or whatever to it, and one that's a picture with it's backstory.
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The majority of pictures I post here are meant to reinforce what I wrote or at least attract attention to the writing. I don't think of what I produce as "art" but rather as a visual equivalent of words (sometimes BLOCK CAPITALS). :)
 
ancient_mariner said:
I suspect that most of us don't feel the need for each image to be imbued with a deep and intense meaning, rather we produce pictures that we enjoy and please us. If someone is going to post an image with artistic intentions then adding a couple of lines to that effect and why is generally quite helpful, else it may well just get treated as odd/failed.
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I might be handicapped, because I can't help looking at any image (though I might have a special leniency for my own!) with an analytical eye that includes not just mind, but heart and intuition. I feel that these last two overlap, being distinct but also deeply in synthesis. Heart, at one end of its spectrum, can devolve into cheap sentiment. Intuition is by its nature incontrovertible - it brooks no substitution, and can't be faked. It's a truth marker.
 
droj said:
Blimey, you made a stimulating post there, Dave.
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:)

droj said:
This seems a bit slanted towards your own way of working & perceptions. An image can be self-sufficient just as a painting or a sculpture can, and have a life purely in the realm of imagery that is self-sufficient, and without a word-based narrative. If I look at and assess a photo, at the core of my judgement of it is how it swings purely as an image. This isn't necessarily technical, as in blown highlights (aaargh!) or some other clumsiness, because an artistic truth can sometimes (even if it struggles), eclipse such concerns. I'm looking for the message and any meaning. Which is a composite thing, & can encompass a huge range of hybrid possibilities.
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And this is slanted to your way of looking at photos on TP. I look at them in the way I look at most photos online, including those by 'the masters' of photography. A quick glance and an equally quick judgement as to my opinion of it. Most aren't worth any in depth thinking about. A very few are. Most don't have a message other than "Look at this".

As for my way of working, I don't show many of my 'stand alone' pictures on here. The ones taken as 'art'. They are actually where I originally came from with photography. I still take them because I can't help myself, but I now find that style of photography pointless other than for my own amusement. But I do try to apply the same principles of picture making to my more documentary work. I believe that if you have a compelling subject made into a picture which is interesting as an arrangement of shapes/tones/colours it can hold a viewer's attention for longer. But that's a whole other thread


droj said:
When is a photograph documentary? All photographs are - they are documentary of the processes used to make them, along with how they may reveal the mindset of their perpetrator and probably other stuff as well.
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I agree that all photographs are documentary, but I don't think photographs reveal much about the photographers. That's pure supposition on the viewer's part.

droj said:
What an image 'says' may be in effect inherent in it but is also the product of a dialogue - whether between the image & its maker, between the image & its viewer, or between the maker & the viewer, but in all of these the image can be the conduit of some meaningful expression. To the maker, it's a kind of mirror. To a viewer, it can function as a an echo of themselves, or as a new discovery - or a hybrid of those.
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Chris Steele-Perkins said that" photographs explain nothing; they describe." People can read all sorts of things into photographs, but much of the time they're not there, or the opposite can be perceived.

droj said:
Yes, words can have a place in imaging, but often as just a commentary or afterthought rather than something that the image depends on.
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Many times I have seen on here that one reason for not passing comment on a photograph is that the photographer hasn't said anything about why they took the picture or what they were trying to achieve with it.

droj said:
If an image needs a tag, does that make it a better image?
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It might enhance it. It might not. Depends on the picture, and its purpose.

Photographs aren't like other forms of picture making, they are democratic, egalitarian, there for everyone to take and look at in any way they wish.
 
Ed Sutton said:
:)


And this is slanted to your way of looking at photos on TP. I look at them in the way I look at most photos online, including those by 'the masters' of photography. A quick glance and an equally quick judgement as to my opinion of it. Most aren't worth any in depth thinking about. A very few are. Most don't have a message other than "Look at this".

As for my way of working, I don't show many of my 'stand alone' pictures on here. The ones taken as 'art'. They are actually where I originally came from with photography. I still take them because I can't help myself, but I now find that style of photography pointless other than for my own amusement. But I do try to apply the same principles of picture making to my more documentary work. I believe that if you have a compelling subject made into a picture which is interesting as an arrangement of shapes/tones/colours it can hold a viewer's attention for longer. But that's a whole other thread



I agree that all photographs are documentary, but I don't think photographs reveal much about the photographers. That's pure supposition on the viewer's part.


Chris Steele-Perkins said that" photographs explain nothing; they describe." People can read all sorts of things into photographs, but much of the time they're not there, or the opposite can be perceived.


Many times I have seen on here that one reason for not passing comment on a photograph is that the photographer hasn't said anything about why they took the picture or what they were trying to achieve with it.


It might enhance it. It might not. Depends on the picture, and its purpose.

Photographs aren't like other forms of picture making, they are democratic, egalitarian, there for everyone to take and look at in any way they wish.
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You (along with Chris Steele-Perkins & Martin Parr) can express the whole truth some of the time, or part of the truth all the time, but never the whole truth all of the time ... ;-)
 
droj said:
You (along with Chris Steele-Perkins & Martin Parr) can express the whole truth some of the time, or part of the truth all the time, but never the whole truth all of the time ... ;-)
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Parr said that all photographs are propaganda. I think someone else said that all photographs lie. :)
 
A photograph may lie, but a lie never took a photograph.
 
Deleted member 97732 said:
What are people's thoughts on using Flickr in 2024? The last time I used it was back in 2022 and it seemed mostly dead then. None of my photos got any views or likes and it was impossible to build any following, so I abandoned it and went to Instagram.

Instagram has been pretty good for getting my photos in front of eyes but unfortunately it's just not a photography app at all. It's obsessed with video.

Flickr seems great for hosting a portfolio of high quality images but I do worry about the future of that site. How long will it last?
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It is a shame that the OP's account had been deleted, and thus maybe there's no way the OP will read my posting. But for the benefit of others who may be interested...

The important point is you should not assume that you simply upload your photo and expect it to gain plenty of views, and gain more followers.

You need to make an effort to get noticed.

You need to write as much description about your photos and includes as much tags as you can, because other people tend to notice your photos when they type in words into the search box. A photo without title, description, and tags, don't get much chances of showing up in the search results.

And the most important thing is, you need to view on other people's photos, and comment on them. Make an effort to say something interesting in your comments.

Don't half-heartedly write "Nice photo." Try to passively write something like "That's a majestic black and white shot, great work."

Often most of them will be pleased with your positive comments on their photos, then they feel the need to see what your photos are like. Some chose to like or fave your photo, some may even follow you.

I've been doing that. I'm on Flickr, not just to showcase my photos to others, but also to view theirs, and whenever I'm impressed with their photos, I comment on theirs, as a result, my views and followers grows.

Be more active. Try to interactive with them, make them get interested in looking at your photos. Get noticed.
 
So why is the op’s account deleted?
 
Marino said:
Thx ! Wow :LOL: i was been nosy, well that escalated fast
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He was certainly going for suicide by staff!
Edited to add, I don't mind you being nosy, it just goes to show some of the crap that we put up with, both publicly and privately
 
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I'm not especially surprised. There have been a couple of '4rsey' new accounts started, and it will be interesting to see how they pan out in the coming weeks.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I'm not especially surprised. There have been a couple of '4rsey' new accounts started, and it will be interesting to see how they pan out in the coming weeks.
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All new accounts are checked for the possibility of being a duplicate, and are on a watch list for a bit.
Of course we are always grateful, for a heads up RTM.
Some are unfounded, some are warranted.
 
I tend to agree with most of that, except for:
Major Eazy said:
You need to write as much description about your photos and includes as much tags as you can, because other people tend to notice your photos when they type in words into the search box. A photo without title, description, and tags, don't get much chances of showing up in the search results.
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My slant is that generally, descriptions & tags aren't worth very much at all, and the depth of engagement is centered around who you engage with & how you engage with them.

Of course if you have a specific subject area, that may be different & more as you said.
 
I think that flickr is crying out for someone to take it over and steer it back to a community geared at photography enthusiasts. Part of the issue is that the community over there isn't as active as it used to be. It has so much potential, but in some ways needs to decide what it is. It isn't social media and should not be trying to attract all and sundry. Just make it a place for geeky photographers, but offer those photographers a decent incentive to use it.

They also need to drop their pro fees, as I think they are absurd for what you receive in return.

I don't tend to use Flickr as much as I used to. There is a real gap in the market for photographers to post and give and receive critique - beyond posting here, obviously.
 
There seems to be a start up trying to do that every month, all the time Flickr is there being ignored. I don't think a new service is needed, I think photographers need to step away from Instagram and go back to Flickr...
 
Flickr, to a degree, is what you make it. It is a form of image-based social media, and to me it isn't naturally about either chat or critique, but about photo 'exchange'. Genuine community can certainly be found there.

It is what it is. Nobody's forced to engage with it. But if you do, you can choose how you do so.

If it has a fault, it could be that its content is largely uncurated - anybody can post anything, more or less - but at least that leads to a kind of democracy. If, within the great morass of material deposited there, you seek out people whose work you can relate to, it's possible to filter out a lot of the dross.
 
droj said:
It is what it is. Nobody's forced to engage with it. But if you do, you can choose how you do so.
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This is a part of the problem - there is less and less reason to do so. It's become a place to stash photos, expensive if you want better features. There's no compelling reason to use it, and a startup with their business model would never get funding now.
 
I've just deleted my account on 500px, which for a while, I preferred to Flickr. I still have a presence on Flickr but will be deleting that too once I complete my website and can host my own work there. I'm sure it has a use but posting to various groups on Flickr is too much like hard work.
 
gramps said:
In truth, here on TP I think there are times when 'like' is just an acknowledgement of seeing the photo ... its introduction elbowed out critique, to such a degree that critique is now often seen as an affront!

I don't look for followers but I do follow some whose work I enjoy but these are mainly on youtube. :)
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I've not posted images in a while, but I thought the forum had two sections, one to post images for critique and a separate section of photos "for fun".
Maybe that was on a different forum.
 
Delphin said:
I've not posted images in a while, but I thought the forum had two sections, one to post images for critique and a separate section of photos "for fun".
Maybe that was on a different forum.
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I don't like the like button, but that is another argument that has been done to death here before...
 
Delphin said:
I've not posted images in a while, but I thought the forum had two sections, one to post images for critique and a separate section of photos "for fun".
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Most 'Photo' sections are for critique but 'Photos for Pleasure' is not ... so nearly right. :)
 
droj said:
There's a problem?
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There is. As I understand it, Flickr is losing money, losing paying members and losing relevance. It's nice to have somewhere convenient that will host pictures, but they want too much money to do that to make it worthwhile, so they are in a cycle where things just get crappier and more expensive for them. It would be a shame to see them fold, but I don't think their business model is sustainable.

Or we can just keep using the free accounts and then move on to the next free hosting site. No problem.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Or we can just keep using the free accounts and then move on to the next free hosting site. No problem.
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Yes, that is what will happen. We've seen the mass migration before and we'll see it again (who still uses Myspace).

There is no NEED to put photos on the web, is not like buying food or paying your rent/mortgage. For the vast majority they'll just move, and social media companies (which is basically what flickr is) know this, they can either make money by offering extra features that a very few will pay for, or adverts and data harvesting.

There is little loyalty on the internet, who stuck with AltaVista as their search site, more recently when twitter/X was taken over by nut job Musk and then he tried to monetize it (among other reasons) , million just left and moved to the free fediverse .

There are a huge number of internet based business that are losing money hand over fist, but investors will keep putting money in on the hope they become the next YouTube or Facebook
 
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I think it's fine that there is no 'community' on Flickr.

Loads of great photographers on there, so many fantastic images posted daily, to be enjoyed in almost complete silence.

For the chit chat and the quarrels on Nikon Vs Canon, Tri-X vs HP5, or Rodinal vs HC110, I head over to the forums. There are still many.

As for Flickr, I keep posting to my account, it's a sort of personal record of my photography journey for me. For both my content and other folks', I love seeing all images in the order they were posted, nicely tagged, in high res, and not reshuffled by some dumb algorithm and sprinkled with ads (think Instagram etc)

I enjoy paying the yearly fee, and I wish the platform all the best. There's nothing else quite like it IMHO.
 
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I enjoy Flickr, both posting photos and seeing which ones get likes or better comments and from where these are coming. I also like to follow a few photographers that I have 'met' on different forums, several of those forums no longer exist so it is a way of keeping up with people and their photographs that I would otherwise no longer see.
As for the community aspect, every month or so the London Flickr group have a small photowalk which usually takes three or four hours and is attended by a dozen or so folks. The people that go on these events are quite diverse, it is interesting to see how other people look on a subject or area in different ways, both watching them work with a scene and later seeing their pictures, what techniques and processing did they go with.

Like most things, Flickr is what you make of it, if you enjoy it good for you, if you don't see the point that is fine too.
 
I like Flickr because you can upload high res photos to the website and then link them to other websites. I might post more of my stuff on Flickr this year when at sporting events so it will become more of a photo storage/hosting account for me whereas at the moment I post a weekly landscape image and engage with a few people.

Not really into having lots of followers and that shows when you see how many people I follow and how many follow me. I don't understand how someone can follow 4k people or more, how does one engage with that many?!

I only have faceache to follow some national and regional sport and don't even follow or have followers on that platform, neither do i put any of my images there, it's purely to keep up with news in my chosen sport.

Tried IG a few years ago and didn't find the platform very user friendly. For me it's Flickr all the way for my photos.

And then this forum and another forum for my hobbies. If I had any more social media I would end up glued to the computer and get nothing else done in real life.
 
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I've never seen an effective Flickr equivalent. The nearest could well be ipernity (which is non-profit), but it doesn't have the same user base, or any previously discovered informal Flickr communities, which in a way would have to transfer en masse to make sense. Though if similar facilities were there, one could start from scratch again - a new community of acknowledgement. But it's an unknown.

The notion of 'free' is interesting. Why should any service be 'free'? Please delineate one, along with any hidden 'hits'.
 
Deleted member 97732 said:
What are people's thoughts on using Flickr in 2024? The last time I used it was back in 2022 and it seemed mostly dead then. None of my photos got any views or likes and it was impossible to build any following, so I abandoned it and went to Instagram.

Instagram has been pretty good for getting my photos in front of eyes but unfortunately it's just not a photography app at all. It's obsessed with video.

Flickr seems great for hosting a portfolio of high quality images but I do worry about the future of that site. How long will it last?
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yup pretty dead. its kinda the beginners goto
 
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