How Flickr has taught me that it is no longer important
I love photography. That was the beginning of my love story with Flickr.
In 2008, when I was planning an incredible and lonely journey to South Africa. I had in my mind that I would see and feel unforgettable things that I had never used to live in my little world.
As a #photolover, I have looked for tools that could take care about my pictures as real pictures. Different than a simple photo book for getting likes, comments or something like that. I was looking for a real photo tool. That was when I met the notorious Flickr.
That was an awesome experience!
The easy way to take my “kids” to the world. Share my point of view from everywhere I went. Sincerely, I have always treated this process as a birth. Give birth to a lived experience.
Since my journey in South Africa, 1,221 photos are available on Flickr. The word “experience” was always with me during my “peregrination” around the world.
A few years after some trips to be shared, I came across limitations.Ok, let’s share these new collections!
Oh, wait…
When I log in my Flickr account it has shown some changes in their services.
When I saw a limit I have reflected if I want to post a lot of photos and know if pay for storage my old photos made sense.
To be honest, I just wanted to do a cost-benefit analysis.
Ok. It’s not a problem. But I needed to change my account to keep my older pics there. Is it fair? Maybe…
I have tested 500px. Great tool, but I was not sure yet. It was not clear if put a lot of pictures in some folders could solve my wish to share experiences.
The dilemma was not about money that would be paid. But about purpose of payment. About purpose of the platform.
After that, I have back to Flickr and felt it as a user. I forgot about my pictures, and I have tried to visit my profile as a person that like to know about experiences.
So I thought:
“Dude, it’s not possible to pass all your experience just putting some pics on a tool. You need to explain all steps and how difficult was feeling that moment. You need to tell a story.”
I was trapped like a bird!
Voila! I got it!
If I can answer as many questions as possible, I can show I little bit about my experience. It makes sense. More than just store a pack of pics in some folders.
No. I was not doing wrong. It has worked for a while. But now I realize that I need another channel. Another way to share my experiences telling a story. For me, Flickr is just a place to storage my files and now I want a little bit more than that.
After conclude I created a thesis in my mind. I want to show experiences as stories because it is more valuable than a photo album. There is a great difference between storage and shares a picture. And I could conclude that photo book is a Facebook tool. I want to share experience.
I don’t take pleasure in sharing photos. I am so glad to share experiences. My photos with comments and participations are the ones that made me proud to have created.
Concludes that Medium would be the ideal channel to tell my stories. My way. With my limits. For who is really here to meet them.
So I created a Medium. I studied the community to adapt and wrote my first story. And here I am!
I consider this story the true justification and description of what will be my stories here.
If you are passing at this point, it means that you are one of my reasons. And I hope your experience can be as enjoyable as mine as I write.
I promise you that I will bring to this simple place great pictures and nice stories. The idea is to share experiences. Discover different ways of showing common subjects. Simply.
Stories for you who are looking for nice experiences, my dear reader.
What to expect from the stories?
Isolated photos of the Niagara Falls and Iguazu Falls are normal. But why not an analysis unifying the experiences of these two great creation of nature?
Have you ever think about how small we are when we are on CN Tower, in Toronto? Is it similar than top of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris. What do these visions have in common?
What does an enlarged picture of an insect have in common with the movie MIB?
You will see here many ̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶ philosophical parallels like these.
It will not be a photo gallery. It will be a composition of texts counting the photos and photos counting the texts.
I mentioned word “experience” fifteen times. Though long-winded it has a basic reason: I tried to put in your mind in the same way that it does not go out of mine.
I thank Flickr for encouraging me to think. I’m sure that I will be so happy here as I was there. 🙂
Flickr, thanks a lot!
If you want, you can check out my “cave paintings” before the natural cleaning of time. 😉
Do you have any suggestions about topics or even about my English? Feel free to suggest!
Thanks for reading. I hope see you again! 😊
Você também pode ler a versão original desse texto, em Português:
