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How Flickr Is Courting the Next Generation of Photographers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the next-generation dept.

First time accepted submitter Molly McHugh writes Flickr Vice President Bernardo Hernandez explains how the beloved photo platform is targeting a new generation that's addicted to smartphones. “10 or 15 years ago it was expensive and complicated to explore the world of photography,” Hernandez said. "Very few people could afford that—[it is] no surprise the best photographers 20 years ago were older people. We believe all of that is changing with the mobile [photography] revolution."

13 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Too late by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Flickr already missed the boat on being the social media image sharping app of choice.

    So now they're missing the next boat by trying to be that instead. It's like the microsoft infinite loop, but now yahoo instead.

  2. Expensive and complicated? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I bought my first 16mm camera for less than $10 (the flash cubes were more expensive!). B&W film was cheap, developing the negs was cheap too. I was 11 or so and that was the late 80s. You paid a lot more attention to ISO and shutter speed settings when you had to wait a week for a roll to be developed and find out which shots worked and which ones didn't. By the 90s in high school I could develop my own film, which really just took some minimal education.

    10 - 15 years ago you could get a decent 35mm for under $100 and photo development was cheap and common enough to fully automate at a kiosk in the mall

    SLR / DSLR prices have pretty much kept pace with the times.

    So what exactly was pricey about "exploring the world of photography"?

    1. Re:Expensive and complicated? by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You are being purposefully obtuse. Not everyone had access to that kind of ongoing capital. A digital camera is a VERY different proposition than film. It is essentially a camera with unlimited film after the initial capital outlay. I know i waited until digital was ready before getting into photography because of this. All of the stuff you listed needs heavy infrastructure, time, deliveries, chemicals etc. With digital all you need is the camera, and a laptop to store them. 10-15 years ago was 1999-2003. I had taken well over 10,000 unique digital pictures by 2003 at a fraction of the cost of film.

      --
      Good-bye
  3. laugh by koan · · Score: 3, Funny

    “10 or 15 years ago it was expensive and complicated to explore the world of photography,”

    Polaraoid...
    Instamatic...

    You know like all those shit filter apps in your iPhone...

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  4. ...the best photographers were older people... by fallen1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which is still the truth, in general. Photography on a cell phone does not equate to photography with a digital camera -- knowing what f-stop is, or shutter speed, or focal length, or a LOT of the other of the fine-grain minutiae that comes from a lot of time spent with film and digital cameras taking hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs.

    Point and click it ain't.

    --

    Dream as if you'll live forever.
    Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
    ~Anonymous~

    1. Re:...the best photographers were older people... by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All that experience can be accumulated hundreds of times faster in digital where you can see immediate results. Tomorrow's experts will be more expert than yesterday's experts, just as the 20th century saw huge leaps in athletic performance such as running and swimming races, weight lifting records, etc. There are also thousands of artists today that equal the top handful of masters of old times, it simply isn't acknowledge because it is subjective, and appreciation is inherently relative, in the same way people love 60's sports cars even though they are actually slow and poor-handling.

    2. Re:...the best photographers were older people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      All that experience can be accumulated hundreds of times faster in digital where you can see immediate results.

      I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on that for the vast majority. Why worry about composition, aperture, exposure, and white balance when one can burn through dozens upon dozens of photos, previewing the results immediately waiting for something worthwhile to show up, and sort/crop/align later. I've seen this first hand with my daughters and their friends. The shotgun approach may produce the occasional interesting photos but does not lead to refined skills required to produce stunning images.

    3. Re:...the best photographers were older people... by eneville · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have to agree with you here. Would you hire a team of teenagers and their smart phones to do your wedding photography? No, I'd put my trust in someone who has decades of experience of photography and knows what makes good wedding photos. Rejecting the rules here is like accepting ISIS education policy.

      --
      Why UNIX?
    4. Re:...the best photographers were older people... by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      All that experience can be accumulated hundreds of times faster in digital where you can see immediate results. Tomorrow's experts will be more expert than yesterday's experts, just as the 20th century saw huge leaps in athletic performance such as running and swimming races, weight lifting records, etc. There are also thousands of artists today that equal the top handful of masters of old times, it simply isn't acknowledge because it is subjective, and appreciation is inherently relative, in the same way people love 60's sports cars even though they are actually slow and poor-handling.

      Actually, there's something to be said about the "old way". Where it took days from when you took your photo to when you got it back.

      It meant you had to work at your shot - you had to compose it perfectly, get the exposure right and all the other stuff. Then click the frame.

      If you were good, you didn't take extra shots "just in case". You knew that after waiting the few days for the photo to come back, it'll be good.

      Today's digital camera? Just click away mindlessly until it comes out right. Trial and error. Just snap snap snap. You know the drill - after that trip you come back with 10,000 snaps, and then filter out through the whole lot to find the few that are keepers. Because the rest would be garbage.

      Which approach is better? Hard to tell. Though truth be told, equipment actually doesn't matter. National Geographic photographers have intentionally gone on trips equipped with nothing more than an iPhone and still take stunning photos using nothing more than the default camera app.

    5. Re:...the best photographers were older people... by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful
      As someone who learned photography "the old way" (film, darkroom, nasty chemicals), there is something to what both of you have to say. My rate of "keepers" in the film days was about 1 shot per roll (1 in 36). My rate of "keepers" in digital is about 1 in 100. So clearly I'm not being as careful to compose the shot perfectly. And I'm definitely taking multiple shots on many occasions with the hope that one will be good.

      But my rate of "keepers" per trip has skyrocketed. With film I'd be happy if I managed just 2-3 keepers from a trip. With digital I expect 5+ and am disappointed if I don't get 10. This is because I shoot a lot more pictures with digital than I ever shot with film. The cost of the professional film I used + developing meant I was paying $0.50-$1 per shot. That put a serious damper on photography. I think the most film I ever shot on a trip was 12 rolls (432 pictures) over 4 weeks, or an average of 15 shots a day. With digital I'll take 2000-3000 shots on a similar trip, or 70-110 shots a day.

      FWIW, the rate of keepers seems to be consistent (between 1 in 50 to 1 in 100) among both amateurs and professionals. i.e. The pro photographers aren't getting those great shots by snapping a few pictures. National Geographic did an article on how they make articles. The photographer shot over 5000 photos (on film!) to arrive at the 8 photos used in the article.

      Which approach is better? Hard to tell. Though truth be told, equipment actually doesn't matter. National Geographic photographers have intentionally gone on trips equipped with nothing more than an iPhone and still take stunning photos using nothing more than the default camera app.

      Equipment does matter. Photography isn't just a matter of seeing something cool and snapping a picture of it. Wide-angles can give you unusual perspectives. Better equipment gives you access to different capabilities. Telephotos allow you to compress perspective, as well as pick out distant subjects without having to run all over. A wider aperture lens can blur the backgrounds more in portraits. Flash exposure compensation can allow you to use a flash, but make the picture look like it was shot without a flash. Zooming during the exposure followed by a flash can create an impressionistic effect which emphasizes the subject. etc.

      I recently drove some European friends to San Francisco. Unfortunately we arrived right around dusk, and they weren't able to get a decent shot of themselves with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I simply borrowed one of their DSLRs, mounted it on a tripod, put it in aperture priority mode, turned the flash on with FEC dialed to about -1.0, and told them to stand perfectly still for a few seconds. When you do that, the DSLR automatically adjusts the exposure time for the background, but exposes the foreground by modulating the flash. The result was a perfect image of the bridge and city lights in the background, with my friends perfectly exposed in the foreground.

      That was GP's point - that better equipment gives you access to more options and different things you can do to take different and better pictures. While it's certainly possible to take good photos with a smartphone, the number of different types of good photos you can take is considerably less than with a DSLR and good lenses. OP misinterpreted GP's post as a film vs digital thing.

  5. the photography equivalent of tweeting by roc97007 · · Score: 3

    There's something to be said for having a camera (no matter how feeble) with you at all times, but aren't we getting tired of pictures of food and blurry portraits taken in the bathroom? People are taking this great thing (a camera with you always) and making it inane. There will inevitably be a backlash. Personally I've stopped taking photos with my phone, except in emergencies (like for accident evidence) when I don't have a "real" camera on me.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  6. Antiquated features, disloyal to paying users by dutchwhizzman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Flickr made paying users regret paying for their service, since they suddenly gave away almost all of the premium features for free. Antiquated features aren't really updated (where's the password protected gallery?) and the forum/app that they have to request features is broken since months. At this sort of pricing/service, I'll get a VPS and use that for hosting my pictures before my subscription us up for renewal again...

    --
    I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
  7. Re:Whoosh by orgelspieler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They were the primary choice for sharing photos amongst photographers back before Yahoo! bought them out. Yahoo! systematically destroyed everything that the photographers liked. At every turn they ignored the feedback of PAYING users. Some of the most talented artists dropped out and went to deviantart, or some others I can't remember the name of. These days they switch to Facebook, or just started hosting their own photos.

    Exploring new artists became challenging and tedious. It seemed like the only way to make the front page was to have some washed out HDR crap. The community has dwindled dramatically; maybe not in numbers, but the sense of actually belonging to a community of like-minded artists has certainly faded. I hardly post, and most of my contacts hardly post anymore either. I primarily use it for a place to keep family photos instead of my art photography.