Flickr – The Last Refuge

2 thoughts on “Flickr – The Last Refuge”

  1. I’m still actively using Flickr as well, though not much as a place of community as I did before 2010. Back in 2005 it was a good way to host images (they were too big for my hosting package then) to embed on my blog. These days I don’t do embeds anymore (no embeds means guaranteed no tracking). I have been a paying member from before Yahoo’s takeover and kept payments up throughout the Yahoo era despite them trying to lure everyone into the free tier, which simply couldn’t end well and didn’t. I think SmugMug, the current owner, means photos are at the heart of the business again and not whatever Yahoo thought it was.
    Flickr’s more like external storage to me now and at the same time allows me to publish those photos under a Creative Commons license so others can use them. Flickr is my primary source to find Creative Commons licensed images for my blog and presentations as well.
    Your Gran Canaria images show up on my screen every few days for me to enjoy as glimpses of what other people are up to. I do very much enjoy that as much as I did at the start.

    1. Oh, gosh! I couldn’t help nodding violently to plenty of what you wrote above, Ton. I am glad you have taken the time to drop by and share such lovely feedback, because I have just realised I don’t follow you on Flickr and, somehow, I had to fix that! Yikes!

      Flickr’s journey has been quite something, indeed, till it landed into SmugMug, over the course of the last 18 years, but I surely agree with you about its current focus on photography and, to me, also building community around it. In my case, around landscape photography 😎👍🏻 heh

      I am also a Pro member and have been contributing throughout the years, although there have been some leap years when I just didn’t show up. Either way, it’s now my main source for photography that I use to embed in blog posts (my own photos) or presentations using CC license(s) from other people. I used to rely on Unsplash for that, but since Getty Images bought it, I reverted back to Flickr, back where it all started in the first place.

      What I enjoy the most about Flickr at the moment is how ‘civil’ the overall discourse is, confirming, despite the bumpy journey, it still has that initial flair that made it an amazing experience RE: photo blogging. In fact, you would remember how it sparked the whole notion of ‘ambient intimacy’ that then contributed into ‘narrate your work’, working out loud or declarative living. In a nutshell, that’s what made it great and why I am still using Flickr today. Like yourself, getting exposed to those glimpses into people’s lives unobtrusively is as good as it gets because the focus is just on that, i.e. photos, versus whatever other ‘hidden’ agenda they may well have …

      Thanks again for the great feedback!

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