Flickr will be eight years old this February. In the ultra-compressed time frame of the web, that’s some impressive longevity, and it’s a testament to the site’s smart design, easy usability and powerful community tools.

But in recent years, finding interesting photography on Flickr has become a bit more challenging. The site has grown exponentially, and not always gracefully. Depending on your entry point, it’s possible that a visit to a Flickr photo’s page will dump you into a somewhat confusing place, saturated with blinking awards, mundane comments and hermetic subcultures. As a result, many serious-minded photographers won’t go anywhere near the site today, and honestly, I have a hard time blaming them.

But as one of the web’s largest and most attractive places for photographs to be shared, the site is still an excellent source for finding great photography. You just have to know where—and how—to look.

To really take advantage of Flickr, you need to make connections—both with other photographers, and with groups. If you think you’re going to randomly search Flickr for photographs and find consistently good work, you’re going to come away frustrated.

In this article I’ll highlight my own approach to using Flickr, and offer some tips that should point you in the right direction.

Explore

Explore and The Flickr Blog

The Explore page on Flickr is an algorithmically determined gallery of what’s popular and trending throughout the entire site, and it’s probably the first place people go in search of what’s popular or interesting on the site. While it can uncover the occasional gem, for me, it’s best to pretty much ignore it; Flickr’s “interestingness” ‘bots tend to favor the more clichéd, overly sytlized, over-processed work on the site. The word “schlock” comes to mind. Not my taste.

The Flickr blog is another resource you can use to get an idea of what’s going on. However, its focus is a bit too broad to highlight much individual work, primarily because the Flickr audience itself is so broad. From time to time they’ll uncover some interesting projects, or announce new archives added to the Flickr Commons (the site’s efforts to build and maintain rights-free archives of imagery for public use), but for the most part much of the work they feature tends to favor the light-hearted and inspirational.

Which is certainly fine, but if you’re looking for more serious work, you’ll have to dig a bit deeper. And the best places to start are Flickr Groups.

A typical group pool’s front page

Groups: The Heart and Soul of Flickr

One of the simplest, yet most brilliant features Flickr introduced were groups. From the beginning, anyone could start a group, focusing it on any conceivable topic. Other users could then submit photographs to the group, start discussion threads, and give each other feedback. Voilà: instant community.

When I first joined Flickr four years ago, I was interested in street photography, and the first group that came up in a basic search was Hardcore Street Photography. I joined it, and four years later I can say I’ve met many very good friends through the group and discovered some really great photography.

Submitting your work to group is a great way to immediately get involved. Some groups will be heavily curated like HCSP, with the group’s administrator choosing which submissions he/she wants to include in the group’s photo pool. So for some groups, it can became a bit of a game to try to get in, while others choose to allow all submissions to appear in the pool instantly. By submitting photos and participating in group discussions you can pretty quickly understand the vibe and culture of the group.

It may have been just dumb luck that I discovered HCSP and eventually connected with people who’d gone on to form their own spinoff groups; you might have to do a bit of searching before you find a group that suits your interests. The first place I’d go would be to your other social networks and your friends. If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, ask your friends which groups they follow. You never know what the hive-mind will return. (You’ll also find a list of a few interesting groups to start with at the bottom of this page).

The next place to look for interesting groups are those associated with the online blogs or magazines that you follow and enjoy; many of them will have Flickr groups where they take submissions. These can be hit or miss: some are tightly curated, and could lead to you being featured by said magazine or website, while others are unrestricted pools where you’ll encounter thousands of photographs. It can make the browsing a bit easier, but you’ll still need to spend some time searching to find photographs that resonate with you.

When you jump into a group, the first thing I’d check is whether or not the group pool is curated. Those that are curated tend to be a bit more active and interesting because the admins invest more time in the group. I’d also check the discussion. Are they interesting? On topic? Haven’t been updated in weeks? These days I tend to think most discussions have migrated to other social networks, primarily Facebook, Twitter and Google+, but there are still some groups with vibrant discussions, like HCSP.

Favorites & Friends

Like all social networks, Flickr is much more interesting when you have friends to follow! There was a time a few years ago when Flickr was the number one destination for following photographers online, but with the emergence of Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, it can be challenging to figure out exactly where people are spending the majority of their time.

That said, there are still thousands of interesting photographers to meet and connect with on Flickr by adding them to your contacts list. And while you can do all sorts of things on the other social networks, Flickr remains purpose-built to share photos. There’s something to be said for that level of focus.

The best way to keep up with what your Flickr friends are doing is through the main contacts page, which shows you what they’ve most recently uploaded. Over the last few years, Flickr has improved this page, allowing you to view different sized thumbnails, as well as each photo one at a time in a light box. I generally view the medium thumbnails and only one recent photograph from each contact.

Once you build a nice list of contacts, I encourage you to take a look at their list of “favorites.” These are the photographs that people essentially bookmark and accumulate over time as they move through the site, and the browsing layout is pretty much the same as the contacts page. Looking at my friends’ favorites adds another filter and layer of serendipity to the experience. You can even subscribe to user’s favorites through RSS if you’re so inclined.

For me, adding these types of layers and filters, by subscribing to favorites and well-maintained group pools is the best way to find work on Flickr. I hope you have similar luck!

A few group suggestions to get you started:

• HCSP (Hardcore Street Photography): The most popular and active street photography group. It’s the place where John Maloof first shared Vivian Maier’s work
• Contract Killers: A heavily curated group focusing on portraiture
• LPV: The group for my magazine, LPV
• Photographs on the Brain: Invite only group, administered collectively
• Fraction Magazine: Photos submitted here can wind up in the printed magazine, or on the site’s Tumblr
• Mosless Magazine: The same goes for Mossless, another contemporary photography ‘zine
• Landscapist: Contemporary landscape photography
• Please Excuse the Mess: The group for the Tumblr edited by Stephanie Gonot
• Two For the Road: The accompanying group for the Tumblr edited by James Turnley

Bryan Formhals is a Greenpoint, Brooklyn based writer and photographer, and the founder of LPV Magazine. He blogs at LPV and tweets at @LPVMagazine

The post How To Find Great Photography on Flickr appeared first on Popular Photography.

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It may not be obvious upon first looking at Kelli Connell’s Double Life (Decode Books) that something is out of the ordinary. You may have passed by the images above of a loving couple without giving anything much of a second thought. But as you look closer, you see the twist: there is only one person here. This moment of realization, and the ideas that spring from it, is what makes Double Life one of our favorite books of 2011.

We reached Kelli over email to discuss her project, an unexpected collaboration, and where it might go in the future.

Bryan: Do think it’s important for the viewer to know the photographs have been digitally constructed?

Kelli: For me, it is important that the images are perceived as being believable. I am interested in how constructing images that look believable can raise questions about social and identity constructs. Calling into question our pre-conceived ideas about identity and relationships is something I am interested in exploring in my work. It is also interesting to me that the veracity of the photograph is questioned through this approach as well.

It’s interesting how the relationship can be viewed from different perspectives. The first time through the book, I viewed it more as a traditional love story. But when I went through it a second and third time I started to think about the different ways that others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves.

How early in the process did you develop these different ideas? Was it something you had in mind when you started or did you discover new angles through the process of making the photographs?

I was pretty clear from the beginning that I wanted to explore the multiple sides of the self in regards to identity and who we portray ourselves to be in relationships. Usually viewers read the work as a relationship between two people, then over time, they realize that they are looking at images of one person doubled. It is then that the images are re-examined and the multiple sides of the self emerge. This viewpoint presents identity as being fluid rather than fixed. The work also speaks about how the self evolves, mirrors, morphs, and adapts through being in relationships.

Another layer to this work that I find intriguing is that most people perceive these images as self portraits. It is interesting that the “original” photographs are made using a self timer with my model and myself portrayed acting out “characters”. What is captured on the film is my model’s interactions with me. Yet, in the final composites, I merge two of her in each scene, removing myself from the composite (unless part of me is needed where there is physical contact).

It’s an interesting dynamic. How did the collaboration with Kiba (Jacobson, your model) evolve over the creation of the work?

When I started this project Kiba and I were already good friends. She has a background in photography as well, so she understands what I am seeing and doing behind the camera. What has evolved over time is our collaboration as a director and actor. We have both been pushing our boundaries. Kiba’s openness, intuitiveness, and ability to take direction is something that I don’t take for granted. Over the years, our friendship has evolved as well as our working relationship. We now have a great system worked out when I am in town for shooting. It has been really wonderful working with her and seeing how the work has progressed as our relationship has evolved.

It was interesting to read your thoughts (in the book essay & interview) on the continuation of the project. Does this book perhaps represent the opening chapter in a much longer story?

I plan on continuing the project as long as Kiba is still interested in being a model and I am still passionate about the ideas I want to explore in the work. Who I am in relationships and how I see myself continues to change as I get older. Who I was in my twenties informed my earlier work, and now that I am in in my thirties, my photographs reflect a different stage of life. It is my hope that the work becomes more complicated and nuanced over time.

Bryan Formhals is a Greenpoint, Brooklyn based writer and photographer, and the founder of LPV Magazine. He blogs at LPV and tweets at @LPVMagazine

The post Books of the Year: Kelli Connell’s “Double Life” appeared first on Popular Photography.

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This is the second article in a continuing series. See also part one on how to find great photography on the internet, with some general tips for surfing the photography web as a whole. And, of course, follow us on Tumblr!

If you’re not a user, it can be difficult at first to see what makes Tumblr unique from any other blogging service–it’s another incredibly easy way to publish text, photos, videos and audio to the web. But luckily for us, there’s more to it than that. What really makes Tumblr shine is the social networking baked into its foundation at the deepest levels.

Since its launch nearly five years ago, Tumblr has become very popular amongst photographers and designers, which makes it a great place to find exceptional photography. However, navigating around Tumblr and actually finding that work can be tricky at first. Because it is so easy to share and re-share photographs, there’s a tremendous volume being posted every minute of every day.

In this article, part of a continuing series on finding great photography on the web, we’ll show you how to get started on Tumblr and help you navigate your way toward some quality work. It won’t hurt a bit.

Getting Started

If you’re new to Tumblr, chances are you’ve already visited a Tumblr or two without even realizing it. It’s a breeding ground for single-serving meme projects like Dear Photograph, and many photographers use it for their own blogs. The design is completely customizable, so unlike Twitter, Facebook or Flickr, which each have rigidly controlled profile pages, you may not even know you’re looking at a site hosted by Tumblr.

You don’t necessarily need to sign up for an account to explore different Tumblrs, but I’d encourage you to do so. That way, you can utilize the Tumblr Dashboard (more on this in a moment), and it will also make it easier to participate in the social networking aspects of the service, which is a good thing. You don’t necessarily even need to share any of your own photographs to participate–many people use Tumblr simply as a ‘mood board’ where they share inspiring and interesting work they discover. I do this with a Tumblr I call Photographs On the Brain.

If you do decide to create an account, there are numerous free themes you can choose from to style both your own posts and others’ that you would like to repost and share. Some people are very particular when it comes to themes, while others will just pick something simple and get going. It’s up to you.

After you sign up, I’d suggest asking your Facebook/Twitter/Flickr friends if they’re on Tumblr. It’s a quick and easy way to seed your Dashboard with some interesting posts from people you know to start off with.

Who to Follow?

Now that you’re signed up, who should you follow? One thing that I really like about Tumblr is they do an excellent job of curating and aggregating their content, which makes it easy to dive right in and find interesting things to follow.

The first place you should go is the Tumblr Spotlight. Here they’ve collected some of the best Tumblrs under a variety of topics. The “photography” spotlight is an excellent place to start–I follow many of the blogs listed here myself. Some purely show their own work, others will aggregate/curate work that inspires them and many take a hybrid approach. It’s best just to browse around to get a feel for what they have to offer.

Welcome to the Land of Tags

Tags are the key way that content is organized, categorized and discovered across all Tumblr blogs. Nearly every post comes with a variety of tags, which makes it easy to search for specific topics, themes or memes. Over the years Tumblr has really harnessed the power of tags by creating an Explore page which acts sort of like a guide to what’s happening at the moment.

But Tumblr really takes tags to another level by having “editors” for many of the most popular tags. For example, they have a “Landscape” tag that’s edited by several people whose Tumblr blogs have caught the eye of the tag maintainers. These popular tags have tabs that allow you to browse editor-sorted posts by “featured,” “popular” and “all.” You can also take a look at the tag editors’ own Tumblr blogs as well those of the “Top Contributors.”

I suggested sticking with “featured” and “popular” when you begin, simply because they’re typically well-edited. If you look at “all,” you’re going to get inundated, and the overall quality level will not be as high.

Browsing the “black and white” tag

What about the “photography” tag? Yes, there is one, but it is not edited. Tumblr wisely decided to get a bit more granular; for photography, the tags to browse are “Landscape,” “portrait” and “black and white.”

Getting Hooked on the Dashboard

Like Twitter and Facebook, you view the Tumblr blogs you follow from a main Dashboard that displays the latest posts at the top. You can also save your favorite tags for quick reference, as well as search.

As you’re browsing through content, you can easily favorite photographs you like by clicking the “heart” button on the upper right corner of a post. You can also “Reblog,” which will post that photograph (or post of any other kind) to your own Tumblr for all of your followers to see. Many photographs will get reblogged hundreds, even thousands of times. Because of this, some photographers can go from relatively unknown to having hundreds or followers overnight. The viral nature of Tumblr is what makes it so interesting–you never really know what’s going to surface in your dashboard.

I’d suggest starting out slow, though, because like I’ve mentioned, the amount of content can quickly become overwhelming. It’s easy to start feeling disorienting from the randomness of the imagery that surfaces with so much blogging and re-blogging.

Warning!

Which brings us to a few words of warning. Because of the viral nature of Tumblr, many photographs will get passed around without proper attribution. There are also some users that just don’t feel it’s necessary to attribute the work the post to their own blogs. I suggest that you be a good citizen of art and photography by always giving proper credit and attribution to the work you share.

And as I’ve mentioned earlier, Tumblr can be overwhelming and chaotic if you follow a wide variety of people. I suggest starting slowly and only follow those who consistently post photographs you find inspiring or interesting.

But, the qualities that can make Tumblr overwhelming are also what makes it such an exciting and reliable place to enjoy some great photography. So dive in!

Here’s a shortlist of some Tumblr blogs I follow that might make for a few good first follows. And, it seems like a great time to mention that we’ve started a Tumblr of our own! Follow americanphoto.tumblr.com for a quick visual scan of our best stories, photography quotes and other work that inspires us.

Urbanautica – Focusing primarily on contemporary landscape photography.

It’s Never Summer – A selection of contemporary work mixed in with work from masters.

Strange.RS – International photography collective focusing on documentary photography.

Minus Manhattan – A good curatorial eye for black and white photographs as well as a keen sense of picking up photographs that surface through the Tumblrverse.

Jennilee – A nicely curated selection of mainly contemporary fine art and fashion photography.

The New Yorker – Images from selected slideshows the magazine publishes on their site.

Life Magazine – Daily images from the vast Life archive.

Emiliano Granado – The Tumblr of an Argentine photographer living in Brooklyn, mixing his personal work and a nice selection of work that inspires him.

Please Excuse the Mess – Contemporary photography focusing on portraiture primarily, curated by Stephanie Gonot

The Great Leap Sideways – Web magazine featuring articles, interviews and a nice selection of contemporary fine art photography

Five Deer – A steady stream of photography found around the web.

Triangle Triangle – Tightly curated stream of fine art and documentary photography.

Bryan Formhals is a Greenpoint, Brooklyn based writer and photographer, and the founder of LPV Magazine. He blogs at LPV and tweets at @LPVMagazine

The post How To Find Great Tumblr Photography appeared first on Popular Photography.

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“Ultimately, and this is incredibly banal, I take photographs because it makes me happy.”

In 1972, while in his early 20s, Chuck Patch was a member of an ambitious group of young photographers who started a co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. For the next 14 years he would follow his passion and dream of a career as a photographer, but wouldn’t have much luck.

In 1986, he settled into a full-time position as “ the computer systems guy” at a small museum. Shortly thereafter his son was born, and that’s when his Leica started collecting dust, only coming out for the occasional holiday or family gathering.

And then in 2004, Chuck Patch joined Flickr in search of “someone, anyone, who liked small-camera, off-the-cuff, straight shooting.” He’d recently picked up the camera after a nearly 20 year hiatus, and was starting to make photographs again.

The like-minded photographers he discovered in his search for a home for his new work were members of a group called Hardcore Street Photography. Over the years, it would become the largest and most popular street photography group on Flickr, and Chuck would become one of the group’s first real discoveries.

Because of the internet, and sites like Flickr, photographers like Chuck have started to dig into their archives and share work that not only merits our attention photographically, but provides us with a new glimpse into history.

Chuck’s pre-hiatus black and white work from the 1970’s and ‘80s, which he calls “Old Silver” quickly developed a devoted following in the group. These photographs oscillate between scenes of street life and public events, to more personal, casual portraits of friends and family (see the gallery above).

After his return to photography in 2004, and the positive reception his past work received online, Chuck would use his camera whenever he could find a few minutes during the day, and began to regularly share new work with his Flickr followers.

“In New Orleans [he now lives in a suburb of Baltimore], when I started taking pictures in earnest again, I had to force myself into a disciplined routine of going out during “lunch” for at least 20 minutes a day to shoot pictures, but I rarely had more than 40 minutes tops.”

His new work from the last decade still primarily focuses on public spaces and street photography, but now he’s shooting color, and has an active community of followers on Flickr which presents itself with new challenges. In the interests of continuing to push himself photographically, Patch recently picked up a Mamiya 7 camera to explore working in medium format.

“I have this great desire to please my Flickr contacts–my photographic relationships, so to speak. It certainly isn’t as if I’m photographing for them–I can’t, no matter how hard I try, seem to do anything other than what I do and that, by the way, is why I do not earn my keep as a photographer–but it’s important to me that I get positive feedback from people I deeply respect.

“In the best of circumstances, walking and shooting puts me in a kind of low-grade euphoria, though certainly not always. But getting a good photograph always makes me happy. I wouldn’t die without doing it, but it makes me feel better when I do.”

Bryan Formhals is a Greenpoint, Brooklyn based writer and photographer, and the founder of LPV Magazine. He blogs at LPV and tweets at @LPVMagazine.

The post Chuck Patch’s Online Metamorphosis appeared first on Popular Photography.

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There are now over 60 billion photographs on Facebook. To put that in perspective, from the dawn of modern photography in the mid-1920s through 1990, it’s estimated that around 57 billion photographs were made.

Photography is everywhere on the internet: personal snapshots of friends and family; professionally produced photojournalism; high and low fashion; cellphone snapshots from protests around the globe; intimate photographs depicting every imaginable aspect of human sexuality; banal scenes of street life; party photographs; photographs of celebrities in the club and in the bedroom; photographs of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Photographs are everywhere and all of us are looking at them every day. It’s unavoidable. And while many photographers might gripe that the majority of these images aren’t very good or interesting (they’re probably right), the proliferation has had a positive impact on how I personally experience photography.

The combination of affordable digital cameras, camera phones and the ease of sharing photography online has made “everyone a photographer” and more importantly, made everyone involved in the photography conversation whether they realize it or not. A byproduct of this is that more and more people are becoming seriously interested in improving their photography, and seeking out high-quality work for inspiration or enrichment.

The challenge many people face in their quest for quality photography online is that they don’t really know where to start, and if they do have an idea where to look (Tumblr, Flickr, blogs), they don’t know how to identify the signal in the noise.

Even for those of us who have spent years following photography on the web, it’s still a daunting task to sift through the volume of new work that’s published on a daily basis. Over the years, through experimentation and repetition, I’ve developed strategies that help me navigate the various platforms, which has made it easier for me to discover new work as well as interesting writing about photography.

I believe anyone can easily implement these strategies and begin to immerse themselves in the vibrant photography culture that’s developed on the web. Over the course of a series of articles, I’ll examine different platforms where you can discover new photography.

But first, I’d like to outline four things to keep in mind before you start digging in.

Don’t be Overwhelmed

Getting started is maybe the most difficult part of the process. Where to begin? It can be overwhelming, but don’t let that get in your way. Just remember that today, with an ever-growing volume of information flowing at us through social media, it’s physically impossible to stay on top of everything. We only have a limited amount of time, energy and attention in each day. So, take a deep breath and surrender to the fact that you’ll never be able to follow it all.

Focus on a Specific Genre or Type of Photography

Most people naturally gravitate toward a specific genre or type of photography. It could be photojournalism and documentary, fashion and lifestyle, fine art, party and nightlife, etc. Like most art forms, each genre breaks down into sub-genres, so you can get rather granular. For example, “street photography” is a sub-genre of documentary which has a very wide following on the internet.

Maybe you already know what type of work you want to follow, or maybe you don’t. Either way, I’d suggest starting by focusing on one and then expanding. As you look at more work, you’ll refine your sensibility and start to learn what type of work inspires you the most.

Participate and Learn

For all the previously stated reasons, (plus, the fact that you’re here reading this) I’m guessing most of you are making your own photographs and sharing them somewhere on the web already. Participating and engaging with photographers and other fans of photography is just as rewarding as looking at great photography. Many photographers are very open about discussing their work and answering questions, and in fact, many actively seek it out. So don’t be hesitant to jump into the mix and comment on blog posts, chat on Twitter or Facebook, or ask questions on Tumblr or Flickr.

Explore and Connect

When I first joined Flickr I used it to simply upload photographs I made of my friends while out on the town. As my passion for photography continued to grow, I started to explore Flickr and eventually found a group of peers who were equally as curious about photography. Many of them have become some of my closest friends.

With the web and photography, it’s choose your own adventure. Embrace it and explore. Follow your curiosities and intuition. Build your own community. Take your passion offline and go to openings, or organize photo walks, or create your own magazine. As the saying goes, it’s the journey, not the destination. Enjoy it!

In the coming weeks, we’ll be expanding on these points with specific tips for navigating specific platforms, like Flickr, Tumblr and the rest. Stay tuned. AP

Bryan Formhals is a Greenpoint, Brooklyn based writer and photographer, and the founder of LPV Magazine. He blogs at LPV and tweets at @LPVMagazine

The post How To Find Great Photography on the Internet appeared first on Popular Photography.

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