As recent postings indicate, I am quite enamored with Flickr. I’m trying something new on this site, and yes, it does involve Flickr.
To date, all the images associated with this blog have been stored on my own web site. To share an image involved resizing the image and uploading it (and optionally cropping, sharpening, and so on).
Now, I’m simply uploading my images to Flickr, which I’ve wanted to do for a couple of months, and linking to them at the Flickr site. When an image is uploaded to Flickr, it is automatically resized and made available in multiple sizes. They also encourage linking to images on their site, so using their bandwidth isn’t a problem.
Besides the simplicity of processing photos when using Flickr, there are some other benefits. As mentioned, the images are available in multiple sizes, so folks can choose to view an image at a size that works for them.
Also, anyone may tag and comment on images, which is part of why I wanted to start using Flickr. I get around one hundred visitors a day to this site, and I wanted to be able to share my photos with a potentially much larger audience. By tagging photos and placing some of them in pools, such as the California Desert pool, there’s a much greater chance for my images to be seen on Flickr than on this site.
All is not perfect, of course. Flickr doesn’t offer the size that I used to use for posting here. As I was already stretching the limits for size here, I didn’t go with the next higher size offered by Flickr; rather I went for the next smallest size. I’m making each image a link to it’s Flickr page, which makes it’s easy for folks to view at a different size, so I think this trade-off is worth it.
Also, if flickr is ever down or worse, the service goes away, then I’ll have lots of broken images on my site. Not too big a risk, as I have all the original images.
Finally, a call to all my friends and family who are reading this: please go signup for a Flickr account. With family, friends, and private groups supported by Flickr, it’s extremely easy to share your images, and, you can keep family photos within the family!