Archive for the 'Images' Category

Following the main conference at the London College of Communication (LCC) on Social Media and Photography , there was a good Q&A session. Many of the questions related to photography but it’s the ones relating to social media that I’ve been reflecting on since Saturday.

A professional photographer expressed distrust of social media and also an anxiety about the way free photographs uploaded online by amateurs is threatening people like him who earn much of their living from stock photography. Craig Smith is one of the lecturers at LCC and also a professional photographer. His response was that there will always be competition and that one way to deal with this particular threat is to engage with it and find a way to use it to your competitive advantage.

I agree with Craig and in fact, had a similar discussion with haute couture designer Roubi L’ Roubi about the issue of copying and competition.

One of my clients is photographer Steven Lee who has recently started a blog as a way to share his passion for photography and also to share the process of his recently published photography book. He gives tips on photography as well as writing about photo shoots he has done, focusing on particular challenges during the shoot or his impressions of the event or person he was covering. He also uploads his own photos to illustrate a particular technique or to give a taste of the photo shoot. Yes, there is a risk that his uploaded photos may be nicked and reproduced elsewhere. But the overall effect is to show his work and expertise to his clients and potential clients - as well as giving them a sense of what kind of person he is.

We like to do business with people that we can trust. In our home life, we try to find plumbers or gardeners through word of mouth - we ask our neighbours and friends. In business, we ask for references and recommendations when looking to employ staff or engage contractors.

As someone working in the creative industries, you can show potential clients that you are good at what you do, that you’re reliable, understand their needs, creative, have expert skills and knowleged through online media such as a blog, podcasts, videocasts or photo galleries. By giving away a few free goodies like free photos, you may gain even more in the long term.

Yes, the threat of free stuff by hordes of amateurs is a potential threat. But, interestingly, I asked Steven that same question and he said to me, “No, it hasn’t affected my business at all. In fact, I think it’s good for professional photographers. Yes, everyone can now take pictures and show them off easily but these people aren’t my competition. It just means people are interested in photography more. If you’re a good professional photographer, there’s still a lot of work.” ”

lccsm

I really enjoyed the conference at the London College of Communication on Saturday around the theme of Social Media and Photography. It was well-attended by students and also a number of lecturers and professional photographers.

Here is a quick summary of my impressions of each session:

Lucy Soutter - opened with how she was enticed into social media by Facebook because the platform feels truly social, allowing you to see friends’ pictures and get a daily sense of what everyone you know is up to. She then discussed social media in the context of Gutenberg, communications and Marshall Mcluhan.

Alan Sekers - showed how Microsoft was developing PhotoSynth to create 3D renditions of the real world, using tagged photographs from Flickr.com. By searching all photos tagged Notre Dame on Flickr, for example, the developers could piece together different views of the world-famous site from different angles in order to create a 3D version online. Apparently, the BBC did a similar trial project but sent out one photographer to take photos of a manor house but it was evident that this very controlled project lacked the dynamism and life of the more collaborative world-wide multi-user project.

Paul Tebbs - examined the Flickr site of Miss Aniela, which starts off as a typical “what I did in my holidays” style site and has evolved to more self-conscious, arty type self-portraits. This started a debate of whether having 2 million visitors makes her work “art” and why there was no critical response on her site - and I think by “critical” they were referencing “critical art theory” rather than “yo, your site sucks” type of criticism.

Yang-May Ooi - I asked: in an online world where content is freely available and freely distributed, what value could be gained by creative artists and those working in the creative industries? I think that beyond financial value, there are other values that you can gain online if you can engage creatively using social media - these other values, like kudos, fun and creativity, can add to whatever work / product you are creating offline by increasing your exposure to a very wide audience, in particular, if you can bring people together through a sense of community and peer-to-peer engagement.

Roger Hargreaves - showed a selection of photos from Flickr as a curated exhibition of Americana. Those amateur photos blown up onto a huge screen looked like pictures in an art gallery and showed moments into American private lives. They had a haunting and strange beauty that drew you into these lives, part documentary/ photo-journalism and part intimate portraits. This prompted a debate on whether these photos could be art if they were not self-consciously referencing previous artists/ photographers before them.

Craig Smith - talked about the incident of the whale that came up the Thames earlier this year which was splashed across the BBC news pages online. The BBC, on their website, called for people to submit their photos of the whale and the public duly complied and flocked to the Thames in droves to take photos of the whale. Their presence along the river then became news in itself and the BBC then featured news items and photos of the people taking photos of the whale. His thesis was that photography is a social media in itself by being a media that can call people to action.

These notes are from memory and no doubt filtered through my non-academic appreciation of the issues. If any of the speakers happen to be reading this and would like to draw out in more detail the central theme of their talks, I would love it if you added a comment - or emailed me your remarks. In particular, if I’ve not quite summarised accurately what you said, please do let me know!

All in all, I found the day very interesting and it certainly made me think about the way I view images online and offline. It was also a privilege to have the chance to hear academics - students and lecturers - engage with each other at that thoughtful and intellectual level that is increasingly rare outside of colleges and universities.

Some photos from the day are on my ZenGuide Flickr account, for those delegates/ speakers who’d like to download them for their own albums. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get very close to the stage so the pics are not great and we didn’t manage to take pics of all the speakers as some of them found the flash photography distracting.

lccsm

I’ve been invited to speak on Saturday at the Social Media and Photography one-day conference at the London College of Communication (LCC), part of the University of Arts, London. My brief is to give an overview of social media for the students at LCC while other speakers will be looking more specifically at photography within social media, such as Flickr and Photosynth.

Here’s the summary:

“Forms of social media, in which the user is also the author, are transforming the role of photography in contemporary culture. On sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, MySpace and Second World users generate and share content, eemingly side-stepping the influence of corporations, governments and editors&;though new forms of censorship are on the rise. What attitudes and assumptions are built into the structures of existing forms of social media? What can we learn about ourselves, our moment in history, and about photography (and video) from looking at social media more carefully?

Speakers will include Roger Hargreaves, Yang-May Ooi, Alan Sekers, Craig Smith, Lucy Soutter and Paul Tebbs.”

The conference is organised by my friend Lucy Soutter, an art photographer and a lecturer in photography at LCC, and the other speakers are her professor colleagues. I’m looking forward to hearing what they are going to talk about as it will be a great opportunity to learn from some academic experts.

In my session, I’m going to focus on what social media means for creative artists and those working in the creative industries, especially where a lot of content on the web is created for free and distributed for free.

~~~~

For those attending the conference, you can download the slides from my presentation Social Media: Free for All? - the password will be available at the conference.

lccsm

I received an email in my Inbox a moment ago from the Online Journalism Review reporting that a German website is calling on the world to declare today, 04 Oct, “Free Burma Day”. The article explains:

“The state-controlled media in Myanmar has been tight-lipped, to say the least. Communication with international news organizations has been spotty, and soldiers continue to turn reporters away at the borders. The message has been clear: “Nothing to see here.”

But armed with cell phones, cameras and laptops, common citizens and protesters stepped in to expose the conflict in real time. Some ran blogs of their own. Many dispatched pictures and videos of police violence to off-shore bloggers and news sites. Either way, they loosened the government’s chokehold on communication.

Now, with the ebb and flow of information from within at a standstill, the offshore sites are left to sustain awareness. A brand-new site out of Germany, Free-Burma.org, calls on bloggers around the world to post a “Free Burma” awareness graphic on any posts today, Oct. 4. Organizer Philipp Hausser talked to us about “International Bloggers’ Day For Burma” and the impact of Myanmar’s citizen-journalist phenomenon.”

You can read the full article Bloggers organize international day of support for Burmese freedom

I’ve been watching the escalation of the tension in Burma through the blogs and online news. Here are some links:

Burma Digest - disturbing photos, videos and reports from right there in the demonstrations.

YouTube channel of niknayman - including footage of a dead monk floating in a river

The Democratic Voice of Burma

The Times article on bloggers who risked all

Del.icio.us tags for “Burma” - these show items bookmarked by web users around the world who have found articles and videos on Burma and tagged them in their bookmarking account at del.icio.us. (There’ll be those related to non-political events as well)

To find out how you can take action, spread the word, do your bit, go to the Free Burma website.

I have uploaded my photos of my trip to Slovenia for the IABC Leadership Institute on a new ZenGuide Flickr account. The collection of photos shows the speakers at the conference as well as some of the delegates and some snaps of the gorgeous capital city Ljubljana.

Ljubljana is perfectly set along the banks of a small meandering river, with cobbled streets and baroque (?) architecture that reminded me of Austria. There were cafes and restaurants spilling out into the streets and people strolling and cycling at a leisurely pace. The Slovenian Tourist Board describes their country as the place where Germanic efficiency and order meets the Mediterranean good life and Ljubljana definitely seems to fit that description.

To see the photos, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/zenguide/tags/iabcslovenia/ or click on the photo below.

~~~~~~~~

Note: ZenGuide is updated Mondays and Thursdays

prjslv

Flickr - notice the spelling (no “e”) - is a social networking site for photographs. You can sign up for a free account and upload your photos. Once you have an account, you get a dedicated webpage address for your photos eg http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourchosenflickrpagename. You can give that link to anyone so they can go to view your photos there.

Public/ private

You can display all or some only of your photos as public (for anyone and everyone to see) or private (which only your friends and family can see). In order to for friends and family to see your private photos, they will need to sign up for their own Flickr account as well - that’s a bit more cumbersome than allowing the whole world to see your pics but then if privacy is important to you, then it’s worth those extra couple of steps for your friends and family.

People viewing your pictures can leave comments for each photo. You can turn comments off if your prefer.

Groups

You can set up a group with your family and friends so you can all pool your photographs.

There are also different public groups on Flickr that you can join. eg if you have photos all about cars, you could pool your car pics into a car group which will have photos by other car enthusiasts. If there isn’t already a group for cars or whatever theme you are passionate about, you can always start one of your own.

People are also using groups in creative ways. Here are some groups to explore:

I love this one - Stick Figures in Peril: photos of those warning signs showing stick figures in all kinds of terrible situations. It makes a nervous person like me feel that the whole world is a minefield of terror…

This one is brilliantly creative - Tell a Story in Five Frames: use five photos in sequence to tell a story. I featured some good short photo stories on my arts blog, Fusion View, in the post “Micro Photo Stories”

This one is starkly hypnotic - Urban Explorers: the invitation to post your photos here says. “photos and stories about abandoned paper mills, condmened hospitals, decaying barns, etc… please do not post typical cty pictures here.”

Creative Commons Licence

For bloggers, Flickr is a great resource for free photos to illustrate your posts. In the “Search” section, choose “Advanced Search” and click on the option to Search within Creative Commons-licensed photos and type in the keyword you want.

Creative Commons Licensed photos are those that their creators have offered to the world to use for free by clicking on the relevant Creative Commons Licence option within Flickr. The only condition is that you credit the creator and link back to the Flickr page where you got the photo. Note that you should check if there are any restrictions in the Creative Commons Licence restricting commercial use or changes to the original photo.

Many ways to upload your photos

There are a number of ways to upload your photos. You can go to the Flickr upload page and upload it 6 photos at a time from there. Or you can download the Flickr Uploader onto your desktop and upload loads and loads of photos all in one go. Or you can even upload photos by email from your email account or your mobile phone - Flickr gives you a dedicated email address to email the pics to.

Tags

Tags are handy labels you can give to your photos so you can easily find them again. You can also search other people’s public photos by tags to see, say, all pics tagged with “car” or “Malaysia” etc.

Free versus Pro Accounts

The free account allows you to upload up to 200 photos. There is also a monthly upload limit (based on megabytes per month). And you can only create 3 “sets” or folders.

The Flickr Pro Account costs US$47.99 for two years (or US$24.95 for one year). There is no limit to the number of photos you can upload nor any monthly limit. You can also create as many folders as you like.

Conclusion

I like Flickr and use it now for all my private photographs. The interface is a little bit complex and takes a bit of exploration and getting into the mindset of the people who designed the site. But overall, I find it a quick and easy way to sort and store my photos and also to share photos with my internationally-based family - there’s nothing like getting an update from my cousin in Australia and being able to see her photos on Flickr within minutes of her uploading them!