Flickr annoyances

First of all, let me start off with an alternate title for this post: Neil Creek hates me. At least it would’ve been a catchy and provocative title. But I seriously doubt that it’d be true.

Neil Creek did write a good post on 10 things he hates about Flickr (at its users). Go read it. Now. And please come back afterward.

I don’t really follow Flickr all that much. My feed reader has enough of stuff in it to prevent me from spending too much online time in it. I limit myself to a few contacts, and mainly the Strobist and Flatcoats pools. But even with these few exposures I’ve seen more than enough examples of what annoys Neil.

Alas, the same problems of one or two word comments appears in photoblogs, but at least most photoblog visitors are other photography enthusiasts so their commenting is a bit more than just the typical to word ‘great shot.’ All in all, I can’t help but agree with Neil’s comments of what bugs him.

The best part is, that when I started reading his post, I immediately started laughing. His first point is that he’s annoyed by heavy metal lyrics (and other prose) in the description of the image. I couldn’t agree more. Except, wait… I’m guilty of it myself.

But I do have a defense: My Valentine’s triptych (part 1, 2, and 3) has exactly that. Lyrics for You are the one by Sentenced (the name says it all, its a heavy metal band). Listening to the song at work a few days before this years Valentine’s Day caused me to rethink my gift ideas completely.

The first shot of the triptych is made because of the song, the second I’d just shot a few days earlier. And the third just fit (even though the quality of it isn’t as good as I’d like). I am hopelessly in love and can’t often find the words to convey my feelings. Often a song is much better in conveying my feelings. I’d also like to think that there would be a day when I could use my photography as a way of conveying my feelings instead of just reporting what I saw. But for now, the images and the accompanying lyrics serve a common purpose.

Note the use of made instead of shot when describing the first picture. Why the differing choice in words? Well, there’s a topic for a future post (especially after I track down the blogs that triggered the thought process in my mind).