The Peculiar World of Web Photo Sharing

theodp writes "Can't get enough pictures of dogs' noses? Circular objects framed within squares? Newsweek reports on photo-sharing sites and picture blogs, where amateur shutterbugs looking to share their passions with the world happily blast their photos out to millions of people. Fotolog CEO Adam Seifer, who posts a picture of every meal he eats on Get In My Belly!, calls the Fotolog-Flickr-HeyPix-Smugmug phenomenon 'a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation.'" Update: 03/14 07:09 GMT by T : Reader onethumb points out an important aspect of such sites: "The new breed of photo-sharing services expose their APIs for geeks everywhere to enjoy. Both Flickr and Smugmug have growing APIs with thriving communities around them. Write your own photo-sharing application, sister web service, or software toy today!" (Here's a link to Flicker's API, and one to smugmug's.)

Comments

My new photo blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashshot.org - My photo reactions to every Slashdot story.

I don't see any photos...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Funny, I don't see any photos. I just see numbers like '404' and '503'. ...

Does my screen not support those types of images?

It has transformed photography for many people...

[SlideGuitar]

What's so strange about it?

You find something that you love... you share it with the world.

http://portlandground.com/

Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[SteelV]

I can't believe that 20,000 people visit Adam Seifer's site every week, just to see pictures of his meals. It's such a useless thing, and fotolog.net just has countless, random pictures. I know art is subjective, but I don't think they have that much subjective value.

I guess it's the same reason we like reality TV: we get to live vicariously. It's good entertainment. And stuff like that.

Personally, I waste enough of my own life eating meals (usually 3 square / day); I don't want to waste even more watching what others eat (or observing other mundane activities).

That's just me though.

Re:Why are we interested in this sort of thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I eat macaroni and cheese with catsup everyday, eh. I could just take one photo and leave it up all the time.

riiight

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

"only without the pain and humiliation"

I know of a few photos this guy hasn't seen yet. If he sticks around Slashdot he'll certainly run into them, though.

The guy doesn't make his own food?

[bourdeau]

It's interesting to note that almost every item that he has taken a photo of is some sort of take out food. Very little homecooked food is shown. Is that now a typical diet?

Sad

[CosmeticLobotamy]

a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation.

It's sad when you have to start explaining reality (and pictures thereof) to people as "kind of like reality TV."

IMO...

[goss]

"a million reality TV shows, only without the pain and humiliation"

Aren't those the main components of "reality" tv shows?

Re:It has transformed photography for many people.

[Anonymous Coward]

...I think I'm gonna take pictures of the people who take pictures of wierd things...

And I'm gonna take pictures of people driving gas-guzzling foriegn SUV's with "Support our Troops" magnetic yellow ribbons (made, of course, in China), for a Blog called "Support our Shieks".

My experiences with Flickr

[metalhed77]

Flickr, if I may say, is one of the best designed web apps out there. It's quick to use, clean, and very featureful. Additionally it seems to have a semi-open API because I see tons of projects (like the squared circle collage) being made out stuff on there. And, most importantly, the interface makes ample use of DHTML and flash in a way that is genuinely useful. Interface elements that on most sites require loading a new page (say changing the title of an image you uploaded) or changing your navigation style are either javascripted or implemented very elegantly in flash. It feels quite close in many ways to a traditional app.

The groups on it are also good for meeting people and sharing tips / techniques. My one complaint about these groups is that people are *too* nice. Even in the ones where it is required that users include negative feedback, none ever is.

LiveJournal Image Theft

[madmancarman]

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but one of my favorite things now and then is to load one of the LJ Image Theft pages that are out there. It grabs the last 200 images posted to LiveJournal, and even though it's largely quizilla results and photos of teenage girls attempting to convey some sort of random emotion, occasionally some interesting memes occur. Recently, when Hunter S. Thompson died, a bunch of people posted photos of him or from the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and one linked to his piece "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved", which I probably never would have read had I not stumbled across it through LJ Image Theft.

However, it's important to note that some people post some pretty weird shit on LiveJournal - especially the Russians! - so it's not always work safe. Actually, sometimes that's what makes it so interesting - you can almost put your finger on the pulse of what's going on in people's heads across the world by scanning through the photos, and the time of day makes a difference, too. For example, St. Patrick's Day is coming up, so I'm sure there are going to be more and more images with shamrocks and leprechauns in them. Needless to say, Valentine's Day was an interesting one as well - lots of broken heart graphics and photos with faces scribbled out. Just get used to seeing this photo of a cat passed out next to a bottle of booze, because it's in there every other time I load the script.