Flickr. I like it, but am slightly wary about the potential it opens up for bunging sometimes extremely tenuously linked photos into blog posts, presentations, poster etc., just for the sake of it.
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| Tenuous, by Road Fun, on flickr |
See what I mean?! Sometimes words are enough! And even when an image is appropriate, flickr won't always be able to provideexactly what you had in mind, but it's tempting to find something sort of ok and go with that (equally, a search can bring up brilliant and inspirational results that you could never have anticipated!). Once or twice I've searched flickr, eventually found a photo that more or less illustrated what I wanted, and only at the last minute changed my mind and realised that taking my own photo would give me
exactly what I wanted, rather than something that was just about ok! I don't want to be lazy and settle for just about ok, and I don't want to get hooked on taking the easy route - benefiting from someone else's creativity instead of using my own. On the other hand, coming back down to planet earth, I realise that there isn't always time to get out your easel and whip up a masterpiece, or even reach for the digital camera, and flickr is a great resource for these occasions. And if your use for the image is illustrative rather than artistic, why spend time taking a photo of something when it's already been done and you could save yourself the effort?
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| Reinventing the wheel, by Romain Vignes, on flickr |
Flickr is good. I see it mostly as something I may use in the future for personal photos. I think for a work presentation or poster I would prefer to use something bespoke. But it's great to know flickr is there if I need it. And as for creative commons - what a great idea!
You may view what follows as a selection of totally unnecessary and completely irrelevant images, but you would be wrong. This post is about flickr; these photos are from flickr. It's perfectly reasonable...
Firstly, something ballet related, just for me...
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| Ballet shoes, by Jeff Medaugh |
Next, a cute animal picture, a must for any blog post surely?...
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| Link in Profile, by Tobyotter |
Finally, a source of inspiration...
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| Batgirl was a Librarian, by Super Furry Librarian, on flickr |
2 comments:
You make SUCH a good point about settling for things when you're searching. It's sort of like going shopping with this precise idea in your head of what it is you want, and just assuming you'll find it. You either end up, as you say, just going with something that isn't perfect.
I recall spending an entire morning once looking for an image that represented the good old economic downturn, finding only things that were rubbish or cliched or trite, and getting so depressed by the whole process that in the end I illustrated my point with a picture of a baby animal. (Needless to say, it took me the whole afternoon to choose that photo, so I guess 'too many options' is the other problem...)
Great post though :)
Thanks Helen!
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