This post is not about photography, but I am so angry at the moment that I wanted to share my thoughts. I am sick to death of paranormalists getting credibility in the media. The Sci-Fi channel should be a sanctuary from the kind of crap we are used to seeing on commercial television, but even here their manipilating fingers are working their way in. This is a complaint I made via the scifitv.com.au contact form.
Letter of Complaint
I enjoy Sci Fi chanel, and I thank you for the 80% of your content which is great. I have always been disappointed by the paranormal (and completely unscientific) shows on your network such as Charmed and especially Medium, but I’ve tolerated them, and simply change channel when they’re on.
However today, I saw a between-show filler segment where a self-proclaimed psychic consultant for the show Medium was interviewed. She boasted proudly about the contributions she made to the show’s “accuracy” and described in detail how her own “real life” experiences are depicted in the show. When asked to describe her “talents” she said among other things “I speak to dead people.”
To show such a fraud on the Sci Fi channel, of all places, in such an uncritical way is to give her and her lying, manipulative, exploitative kind a credibility they do not deserve. Psychics and their like fraudulently take money from vulnerable, gullible and worst of all, bereaved people who don’t know any better.
For you show to give this morally devoid woman any kind of credibility is completely unacceptable. I can begrudgingly accept paranormal fiction shown on your network, as it is clearly presented as fiction, but I will not tolerate the endorsement of these scums of society.
I would like to hear from you a commitment not to screen this or any similar segments again in the future. However if you continue to give these frauds credibility, I will take my complaint further into the general media.
Please excuse my taking advantage of you as an audience to post this rant, but it is an issue that matters a great deal to me. I’d be happy to discuss this with anyone in the comments or on the forum if you want to say anything further on the matter. I will return to the topic of photography for the next post.
I love Flickr! It magnificently combines a powerful and fully-featured image sharing site with community features, to create something greater than the sum of its parts. It is not without its shortcomings, as I described in detail in a previous article, which generated a lively discussion. However, despite the flaws, the incredible strengths of Flickr make it a service that almost everyone who takes photos will find valuable in some way. Like most things in life, the more you put into it, the more you get back, but the wealth of freely given advice, beautiful photography and community interaction is staggering.
Here I discuss, in no particular order, the ten things that I love most about Flickr and its users. Many of these points apply to any art of photography sharing site or community, but some are specific to Flickr. As a Flickr pro user, it is my preferred photo sharing site, and for that reason is the focus of this article. I do not work for Flickr, nor am I receiving any compensation for my opinion.
One of my favourite Flickr photoraphers – CC mugley
Amazing photographers
If I’m ever needing inspiration, or just want to look at beautiful photos, there’s no shortage of them on Flickr. There are lots of ways to find great photos, through Flickr’s Explore feature, searching for a theme then sorting the results by “interestingness”, viewing the favourites of another photographer you respect, viewing the pool of one of the many high quality invitation only photo groups, or simply adding great photographers to your contacts list and looking through your contacts’ latest photos. Don’t think that because Flickr is a free service that the photos there aren’t amazing, some of the worlds’ most incredible photographers use it.
Comments on photos
I am a comment junkie. When someone likes my photos enough to share their thoughts, I find that an huge complement, and I am truly grateful for each and every comment given in that spirit. Readers of my previous Flickr article may be surprised to hear me say that I love every comment, but it’s true. Granted, the shortest comments have the least impact on me, and I won’t remember what was said or by whom not long after I have read them. However, the very fact that someone liked my photo enough to tell me so, however simply, is sincerely appreciated.
At its best, comments on photos can become fascinating, engaging and highly informative conversations that have a genuine impact on my photographic skills or my attitude towards photography. I have become a better photographer in part due to insightful comments on my photography.
Detailed descriptions on photos
As helpful as insightful comments on my photos are, so are informative and detailed descriptions on photos. It can be a time-consuming task to add a description to even a few photos, so it is especially appreciated when a photographer chooses to share behind the scenes information about their work. The best description thoroughly but concisely details the creative process of taking their photo, share the technical details of how the result was achieved and sometimes even offer ideas for how to take the creative process further. This glimpse into the workings of a talented photographer’s method is profoundly helpful to other photographers wanting to learn how to take similar photos. To every photographer who has pulled back the curtain and showed usbehind the scenes, I offer my deepest thanks.
Photo metadata
There’s so much more information associated with a photo than just the image itself. All kinds of metadata, from the EXIF, to tags, to geolocation, to description, to IPTC and more. This is hard to keep organised, and even though it could do with some improvement, Flickr does an admirable job. Just about any metadata associated with an image can be read from the file if it’s embedded, or added afterwards.
Organize
It could use some refinement, and extra features, but the Organize interface for organizing your photos is really quite awesome. You can sort, tag, describe, map, and edit your photos in this one interface. You can add photos to groups, manage your own sets, set permissions or delete images as well. Considering that’s it’s all done via a web interface, the speed and flexibility is impressive. I’d like to see work continue on this important part of the Flickr experience, but I’m very impressed with it as it is.
Groups
If all we could do was read photo descriptions and comment on others’ work, Flickr would be wonderful, but groups take it a big step further. Members who share a particular interest, or some common characteristic, such as their location, can come together and form a Flickr group. While simple compared to some community sites, Flickr groups are nonetheless fantastic resources for photographers. A shared photo pool and custom discussion threads let groups share their work and ideas on their specific topic. With these simple tools, a huge variety of special interest groups have been created, and the very best groups are some of the best photography learning resources in the world, and they can all be accessed for free! I run a Flickr group myself, and I am loving the experience of connecting with photographers and sharing our photos and ideas.
Many ways to find photos
There are billions of photos on Flickr, from all over the world, of all kinds of subjects. Despite this, finding photos that relate to your particular interest is easy. Flickr have given photographers and members many ways to make available and find photos. The search function will search titles and descriptions, as well as tags that members add to their photos. If a member belongs to a group, they can add their photo to that group’s pool to be seen by others interested in that group’s niche. Clicking on a photo’s tag will show all photos by that user with that tag, or if you like, all photos marked with the tag. This particular feature allows me to collect photos that my own Flickr group’s members take for our weekly challenges. If you want to see photos of a particular location, you can find it on the Flickr map, and geo-tagged photos will appear as points on the map, which can be clicked to enlarge. Flickr takes the concept further with “places”, a kind of cross between the map and groups.
Camera tossing – experimental photography for the brave – CC mikecpeck
Special interest/experimental photography
Among the countless Flickr groups, there are some that push the boundaries of photography with amazing and inspiring photographic techniques and creative ideas. Some are deep and intellectually challenging, some are fun and creative, others are just simply hilarious. As a photographer, being able to explore exciting new ideas and experiments is incredibly liberating, challenging and fun. Once you start to dabble with experimental photography, you can share what you have done with others doing the same, and you’ll get invaluable feedback to help you become better and better. For the true trailblazers, you can share your own original ideas and you’re bound to find others who like what you do. No longer must you languish in obscurity, entertaining only yourself, if you wish, you can have an audience of thousands.
Third party tools and plugins
I love that Flickr has opened up access to their data and our accounts, to allow third party developers to give us awesome tools and features that go beyond the standard Flickr features. My personal favourite is the Flickr Tag wordpress plugin. Almost every image displayed on my blog in the last year has used this plugin, and the weekly feature posts on this blogs Flickr group would be an absolute pain to make without it. I’m also just starting to play with the Nintens Flickr gadget, that provides stats on my group. There are so many more that just blow me away, such as Flickr DNA, FlickrSLiDR and Flickr Colr Pickr.
It’s free
Sure, I have a pro account, but Flickr does almost everything for free, almost all of the features are available to anyone who signs up. When you might want to pay for Flickr is when you start to get into it more seriously. For free you can upload as many photos as you want, but only the most recent 200 will stay visible in your photo stream. But frankly, the cost of a pro account, $24.95USD is really not a lot of money for what you get. Just look at how many users have the “PRO” image next to their names.
Next up?
I’ve complained and I’ve praised, and that’s all well and good. Not much will come of it however. Next time I talk about Flickr, I plan to list 10 Suggestions to Improve Flickr.
This farce has me dismayed at the new paranoia sweeping the world, and fearful for photographers everywhere. The London police have launched a new terrorist fearmongoring campaign with posters around the city asking citizens to report “odd” photographers.
Radio ads that are part of the campaign say:
How d’you tell the difference between someone just video-ing a crowded place and someone who’s checking it out for a terrorist attack?
The answer is, you don’t have to.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/06/anti_terrorist_hotline/
The police are actually telling people not to use their brain, and let the police decide for them what is a threat. I’m sorry, but that’s insulting, belittling and downright oppressive. Without defining “odd”, countless innocent photographers (and I daresay ALL of them will be innocent) will be reported and subjected to unnecessary police investigation. Some of them may even be unfortunate enough to be persecuted and mistreated.
When the ordinary citizen become so afraid, and the government encourages them to be fearful of other ordinary citizens, then the terrorists have won.
And frankly, terrorists have a huge resource of photographs taken by others and shared through sites like Flickr and others. If they don’t want to get resported for suspicious activity, all they have to do to scout their targets is look up the Flickr map for photos taken nearby. As is always the case when this kind of madness happens, it is the innocent who will suffer most.
Naturally, within hours of the capaign launch, the parodies started appearing online:
If you can’t laugh about this, then you have to cry.
Enjoy some more parodies at BoingBoing.
Complaint to Sci-Fi Aus re Psychics
This post is not about photography, but I am so angry at the moment that I wanted to share my thoughts. I am sick to death of paranormalists getting credibility in the media. The Sci-Fi channel should be a sanctuary from the kind of crap we are used to seeing on commercial television, but even here their manipilating fingers are working their way in. This is a complaint I made via the scifitv.com.au contact form.
Letter of Complaint
Please excuse my taking advantage of you as an audience to post this rant, but it is an issue that matters a great deal to me. I’d be happy to discuss this with anyone in the comments or on the forum if you want to say anything further on the matter. I will return to the topic of photography for the next post.