preston noon

Assignment #2

The Flickr network especially within ITP is one which is readily part of the culture. It is one through which, after breaks, or over the summer, during the short time at ITP, that friends and the community stay in contact. It is less a personal network of direct communication, than an otherwise ethereal network associated with pictures. My prediction is that it probably will be the most lasting of the community. As a new user, and one especially that can relate to a moment captured on film, I feel the thousand words conveyed by a single photograph often and profoundly. I am in that place and feeling that moment through which I am conveyed by a link. This I feel is the glory of Flickr and the very aim of it's creators. What is nice about Flickr is that it is at once a realm of photophiles, as well as amateurs. In fact Flickr offers their services to anyone, even without photos. More than any other site, I feel, Flickr brings the beauty and truth of our reality, and our world, online.

As a new user, I have not witnessed the varying evolutions that have occurred, since the launch. What I can present, and what I have observed, is very much limited to the past few weeks, but in no way are they limited in scope. For this assignment we were instructed to investigate what type of groups are made possible by the network. One of the most common groups is what we have here at ITP, we have a group of friends sharing their lives through photos. Specifically at ITP this allows for both work and play, as documentation is very much full spectrum on the floor. From a weekend party at someone's house, to a LED mounted on a breadboard. It is important for me to point out that as I expanded my friends base, or Network, through people I know, the majority of my Flickr friends are in fact students that graduated last May. On a local level, as in people I see almost daily, they comprise the second half, I have yet to find a single person I know who uses Flickr. What is most curious to me is that out of a class of over one hundred there are only about twenty people with accounts. Despite the fact that almost daily there are links posted on the student-listserve pointing to a photo. For the most-part, of late YouTube has the court, though only a few students actually post there. I am curious to know if the relatively low number of accounts is due to having among the users a group of power users, in some cases with four thousand photos posted, negates the need or desire for more of my own classmates to get online. I can report that in most cases these power users have become the documentarians, and usually are the only ones taking photos at a social function.

The social ramifications of Flickr have been discussed in class. I believe these factor in to the lowered number of accounts, in most cases, especially with my classmates Flickr's sole purpose is to embarrass friends the day after a long night. As I am, as I said, a new user I am not aware if this has always been the case always, the most common tag, it is important to point out, is in fact "party". By my observations there are a variety of emergent groups on Flickr, in fact quite nearly as many variations as you would find in other networks, the difference is obviously that, for the most part, the communication is through images. Tragedy has been a unifying pillar in the community, from the Gulf War, to the wake of Katrina there is a gravitational pull surrounding like experiences, on another level "london" is a common tag as it is a common destination, with a host of photo ops. What is compelling about Flickr is that one can usually find an interest group regardless of their interest. The closest analogy I have is on MySpace where you have both celebrity impersonators and inanimate objects. I was surprised the day I discovered the profile of Mailbox and found he was friends with Lamppost, Trash-can and Parking meter. It is important to note that the formation of groups on Flickr is exceedingly easy, but the navigation through groups requires a bit of precision, as you narrow your interest. For the first part of this assignment I looked at the process of tagging, and tags and most importantly how the variations within tags are a weakness. This is completely the opposite in group formation, where tags disenfranchise specific photos, the further specialize a group. There is no express way to search the groups, other than directly. Through a few refinements within the search field I feel anyone can find the exact group they are looking for. My feeling is that the network could be strengthened by allowing the same cloud display as found with tags. Regarding tag,s the cloud display provides even the first time user with an instantaneous procedure for operation. My mistake, as I realize now, was not looking at the most popular tags first. My theory initially was that variations in specific tags, such as " newyorkcity", or "NYC" divided the network, however doing as I just mentioned, looking at the most popular tags, provides a foundation and the choice is given over to semantics. I would choose NYC as that is what it is called, since a tag of "The City" as it is truly named, doesn't work as a tag.

The commonality between all groups is that an image is the sole communication. Not long into your Flickr experience you are presented with the breath taking artistry prevalent among the masses. I am uncertain how the top photos are chosen but there is no question that they are indeed the top photos. The set, in fact, looks more like the final annual winners of Photography magazine, than simply someone's vacation, or the photo they snapped with their phone on the way to work, either of which they may in fact be. I am so impressed by the calibre of photography found on Flickr that I will probably stop searching on Google for images, a practice I do almost daily. Additionally my behavior, or at least my set has changed over the past few weeks. Initially I uploaded everything, much in the style of the documentarians, however upon review, I realized not only the calibre of my peers, but the integrity that comes across in a profile, almost immediately I corrected my set to be that of a photographer, rather than that of a socialite, or whatever that type of profile is named. This is indeed the one most prominent social effect of the network. Although I do post occasionally a few party "gems" as it were, for the most part my Flickr set reflects my eye to the world. It is this perspective that comprises my entire reasoning for taking photos at all, preserving time, beauty and my imagination in a thousand words.