Showing posts with label flickr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flickr. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Alps Climbing 2011

Descending the Midi RidgeDent du Geant, Rochfort Arete and Grand JorrasseMeTour Ronde North faceView from Helbronner Cable CarPinnacles
Crossing the Vallee Blanche GlacierMont Blanc du TaculSunset @ 3500mSunset (Explore # 229)




Alps Climbing 2011, a set on Flickr.


Some photos from my recent climbing trip to the Alps. I'm particularly plased with teh sunset shot as that made it into Flickr's EXPLOPRE @ #229. My best showing yet.

Despite a couple of bad weather days we managed to get a lot done and I got some great photos with a borrowed Canon G12. We didn't achieve our main objective of Mont Blanc due to the weather, but thats just an excuse to go back next year.


We climbed ...

Petite Aiguille Verte
Traverse of the Valle Blanche
Cosmiques Arete
Mont Blanc du Tacul
Gran Paradiso





Wednesday, April 7, 2010

My flickr stream showed a bizzarre anomoly today.. views were trickling along nicely and it was looking like anothe rday with 200+ views and then BANG it shoots up to 900 in literally minutes. No single photo was the culprit but it looks like someone viewed pretty much very photo I have. A quick google showed that doing this in slideshow mode doesn't increment the counter so they must have looked at every single shot.... how bizzarre.... and no faves or comments in the process.

I'm also trying something else... embeding my most popular shots here as a slideshow.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Epiphany....

I'm on a mission to reach Flickr's Explore. This is a portfolio of the top 500 shots uploaded to Flickr each day. There are something like 5000+ uploads a minute but only 500 make it into explore each day. It's an honour to have your shot chosen.

The exact algorythm they use to reflect "interestingness" is highly secret but it's common knowlege that it's based on number of views, faves, comments etc so having a lot of people looking at your shot and leaving comments and faving it is good, as is the speed with which it gernates those views/comments/faves.... but. You can't go pimping your shot to many many groups, spreading your next wide... as this goes against the interestingness rating. Keeping it to 5, certainly less than `0 groups is supposed to help.

Over the last week I've consistently been doing unto others as I would have them do unto me. I've been visiting more contacts home pages, commenting and faving their stuff.. but still only stuff that I truly like and I've been getting the same in return. more comments, more faves, more contact requests and a lot more views. My views have gone from an average of < 75/day to over 200 for the last 6 days with some simple yet seemingly effective behaviour changes on my part.

Next I need a stonking great photo at the top of my stream and then go faving, commenting a lot of other people's photos. I'll only post it to a few of my best groups that I know gives me a lot of views (probably strobist).. and we'll see how we go !!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

April Fool..... unfortunately.

So I got well and truly April fooled today. I usually visit Flickr in the morning to check out the Explore section (it's a great way of seeing some great photos and getting inspiration for my own shots) Every single shot on the first 5 pages was either rainbows or pandas !! What the .... ??

I thought nothing of it but when I checked back a few hours later it was still all pandas and rainbows. I left a few comments to that effect (there were still some great shots) and then based on another comment above mine I twigged !! It's an April fool. Flickr uses an algorythm (affectionaltely called the "magic donkey" to define interestingness and choose 500 photos it rates as the best (most interesting) to put on explore. Getting on Explore is a real honour as there are only 500 each day and flickr has something like 5000 uploads a second !!

The second part of the April fool was from "Big Huge Labs" and their flickrscout application. This is a tool whereby you can search for your own photos and find if they have been or are currently in "explore". Scout had been set up to show all of your photos... making it look like all of your stream had made it into explore.

I couldn't resist making a Poster of this. If only it were true though !!

In reality only 2 of my shots have made it into explore.. although obviously I thinkl I deserve more.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

New Toy ....

My new toy has just arrived today, a B+W ND110 filter. This has the effect of cutting hte light by 1000 times (log factor 3) to create long exposures even in Broad daylight. This has the creative effect of rendering wavy water flat, giving clouds a streaked, smudged look.

The BWVision website (Joel Tjintjelaar) is is a great website for some info about long exposure photography using ND110 filters. See Joel's work on Flickr

I just hope the weather is kind this weekend so that I can experiment. I also hope that I can aspire to some shots like these guys... watch this space.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjintjelaar/4106459317/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27595401@N08/4271558172/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37151423@N05/4230896521/in/pool-nd110-filter-group

Friday, November 20, 2009

Flickr 50,000 Hits Since I Joined

I joined Flickr back in June 2008 and was fairly slow uploading images. It was only when my Canon 40D DSLR arrived in September that I got more serious. I've experimented with a lot of things over the last 18 months, portraits, still life, macro, strobist lighting, freezing motion etc etc and I've certainly learned a heck of a lot. I've been really pleased to have been asked and be able to photograph a friends wedding, 2 christenings, a holy communion and recenlty a set of head shots for a local school.

When I look at my "most interesting shots" see link below I am really pleased with the quality of what I can produce, not just out of camera but with some post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop to take things to the next level. Looking at some of the other shots on Flickr that I admire I've still got a long way to go... but I will find that magic explore place sometime soon !!

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/marklandon/popular-interesting/


Thursday, November 19, 2009

I Won a Photography Competition With This Shot !!

OK, so it's no big deal, there was no prize or anything... but the Kudos of being "voted" the winner. Come on, thats big !! Humungous !! ... and reward in enough itself :-) . The competition was in the "Unbearably cute" group on Flickr for their Halloween themed monthly competition.

The title of this shot is "If The Pumpkin Closes Her Eyes, the Witch Can't Hypnotize Her !!"

Here's my "winners notification"

"Kimberly Lynn says:
Congratulations, you are our first place winner of The Cutest Halloween Costume Contest! Unbearably Cute! "

Click on the image to go to my Flickr stream and see the lighting details.