Why Flickr?

I have seen a few stories over the last few days about how the CEO of Yahoo is not really showing much interest in Flickr. It seems that even the Yahoo homepage redesign may be missing a Flickr button.

I keep using flickr mostly because of the existing community of not only photographers but local groups in my Area. As an example, the East Bay Regional Park District uses Flickr as a way for park visitors to share images. My local city has a flickr group as well.

I find it to be an easy place to share images with the non-photography world in a way that is recognized by many as a "safe" photo site. Name recognition goes a long way. Flickr really has helped me to get exposure as I build my photography portfolio. I also like the basic stats they provide to help me track views.

I have thought about opening an account at smugmug.com but I do not see a "community" the way I do on Flickr to help get exposure for my images.

Do I think Flickr is going to go away? No I don't, but I also don't see it changing any time soon.

For now I will keep using Flickr and 500px.

Need some new places to shoot

I feel like I have pretty much exhausted all of the interesting buildings and landscapes in my area (that don't involve really long hikes).  You can only take photos of so many barns and store fronts before you run out of local options.  Although the recent suggestion to visit Fremont was pretty good.

I posted a few photos to 500px this week from my archive and didn't feel very confident with the quality, and just deleted the post.

To help keep my camera busy, I am working to photographing each of the 65 parks in my town. Some of them have some pretty interesting play equipment and some are just very basic and don't excite me.

On Saturday I am taking a road trip to Ione California to visit a haunted house that is supposed to be pretty camera friendly. I will be on the tour. I am hoping it is "self guided" so I can take my time. Otherwise I think the town itself will have a lot of interesting buildings and landscapes.

As a side note, I have started going on walks every day to get myself back into shape. A 3 mile hike used to be no big deal to me, but these days a mile is far from easy.

I also went to the eye doctor today for a checkup. Good news, the eye I use to look through my camera is in good shape for long distances. On the downside I need reading glasses.

The Oak Tree

This photo has become my most popular image on 500px.  When I look at the picture, it almost looks like a painting instead of a picture.

Very little processing was performed.

Shot with Nikon D5100 and Tamron Ultra Wide angle lens.

Loving the new 500px

Every time the guys at 500px upgrade the service, they do a great job. Subscription fees are basically lower for most people, the stats are greatly improved, they added photo sets, you can "like" comments and many more changes I am still learning.