Last Flickr Friday we asked you to Keep It Simple.
Above is a selection of your submissions ranging from "simple" notes to minimalistic views. You can check out all contributions in the Flickr Friday group pool Thanks for your submissions, we’ll be back tomorrow with the next Flickr Friday theme.
In the old version of Explore, we allowed you to peek back in time at Flickr photos that were taken exactly a year ago. Since that was pretty awesome, we’re resurrecting the feature in a different form by tweeting a year-old photo every day with the hashtag #flickrpast. To kick it off, the photos above were taken from February 25th to March 2nd (plus a bonus one for leap day), all the way back in 2012.
These photos were all uploaded with our new iPhone app’s “Mammoth” filter, which seems to lend itself to shots of skies, shrubs and steel. To see more like them (or search for a particular filter from our app), try out a Flickr search of “flickriosapp:filter=mammoth”, like this.
"I think of myself as a photography factory," says photographer and blogger Thomas Hawk, who has embarked upon a journey to shoot and publish 1 million photos before he dies. "I am obsessed with photography, but I think an obsession can be the same thing as passion."
Thomas, in his mid-40s, carries his camera everywhere he goes for fear that he may miss a great photo opportunity. But he still has a long way to go in order to achieve his goal.
"I’ve almost uploaded 79,000 photographs to Flickr," he says. "I have another 22,000 or so photographs that are ready to go on Flickr."
His "love affair" with photography started when he got his first Kodak Instamatic camera as a 7-year-old. At 15, his parents bought him his first SLR before he took a bicycle trip across America. "Riding your bicycle across America when you are 15 really gave me an early appreciation for America," Thomas says.
In his quest to take 1 million photos, one of the things he wants to do is document America’s 100 largest cities.
"I think I have shot maybe 36 out of 100 so far," he says. "I want to shoot the entire country in the most comprehensive and substantial way it has ever been done."
Thomas specifically wants to capture the parts of America that are temporary before they disappear.
"I think people will want to go back in the future and remember a different type of America; a place that was unique to their time frame," says Thomas.
Architecture is one aspect of Americana that is always changing. He cites Detroit as a perfect example.
"Detroit is in massive decline. There are tens of thousands of abandoned structures in Detroit. There is nothing like that in the world, really, that I have ever seen and I want to capture that and show that part of America before it’s gone."
Thomas is also fascinated by neon signs, which are also fading away. "Back in the day, before things like florescent light bulbs were around and plastics, a neon sign was a great way to draw someone to your business; it was very bright and vivid," he says. "So much of that signage is torn down and is going to be lost and gone forever."
He also loves the people of America because they are all so different depending on the part of the country. "You’ll shoot people dressed to the nines out on South Beach in Miami. You’ll shoot people in New York with their sort of unique fashion sense. But then you’ll go to someplace like Fort Worth, Texas and you’ll find a whole different culture: You’ll find cowboys."
"I think the world is such a beautiful place," Thomas says. "Every place I go I am convinced it is my favorite place, and yet I go to someplace else and that place becomes my favorite place."
But his desire to shoot 1 million photos in his lifetime does not come easy. It is a struggle to keep up such a rapid pace.
"It is a lot of hard work being out there on the road and shooting, by no means is it easy," he says. "If I decide to go to a city and I’m gonna shoot for 20 hours, and I am going to sleep for four, and I am just exhausted at midnight, the last thing that I want to do is get up in the morning at 5 am for sunrise. That’s hard."
There is also a struggle to find time with his family in between his day job as an investment advisor and his ambitious goal. He is married, with four young children. "It’s a struggle to keep a certain amount of balance in my life with my family, and making sure I give them enough time at the same time I’m pursuing this passion," he says.
"Do I feel like time is running out, ever? Yeah," Thomas says. "You only have so many breaths and then you’re gone. So there is a race against the clock in a way. I try to really maximize the time I do have."
While he doesn’t know if he will be able to reach his goal, he’s certainly going to keep trying.
"For me it is a way for me to keep my focus to keep working with an intensity that I think produces the work that I want to do," he says. "It takes incredible discipline drive and passion to accomplish big things and I want to accomplish something big with photography."
We need your help! March is Women’s History Month, and The Weekly Flickr wants to celebrate the women who have changed your life. Before February 28, please add photos of her in The Weekly Flickr group and include a brief description about how she impacted your world for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.
Last week’s Flickr Friday theme was When Night Falls.
You took many different approaches to interpret the theme, from colorful sunsets, stunning night shots and even more creative approaches like the (K)night photo above. You can check out all contributions in the Flickr Friday group pool Thanks for your submissions, we’ll be right back with the next theme announcement.
Our latest update to the new iPhone app is here! It brings quite a few features that many of you have asked for.
Take the conversations to another level!
You can now mention your friends right from the app. Start by typing in the @ sign, and then simply select one of your Flickr contacts to mention them in a title, description or comment. We will notify your friends that you mentioned them.
Download your photos!
You can now download your own photos from Flickr to your camera roll. Just tap the share icon on any of your photos and tap “Save Photo”. A few seconds later the photo will be in your iPhone’s camera roll in the largest available resolution.
Faster than light (nearly)!
Uploads from the Flickr app are much faster. We did some magic to optimize uploads, but also start uploading in the background while you think about the photo’s title or where you want to share it to. You basically get the best of both worlds: High resolution uploads that will make sure that you can enjoy your photos in great quality in the future, plus fast uploads in the background, so that you don’t have to wait.
And there is more: Photos that you take with the Flickr camera are now immediately saved to your camera roll. We also now display an even higher resolution image in the lightbox view, so you can zoom in further and see all of the details. Lastly you can now take photos in a snap by using your iPhone’s volume up button.
Black and white photography can teach us to see the world more graphically as shapes, shadows, textures, and lines within the frame of our photos become more pronounced.
Dive into the world of colorless photography and get inspiration for your exploration of monochrome moments in the Black and White group group.
You’re bound to be captivated by at least one building designed by Oscar Niemeyer when exploring Brazilian cityscapes. With an international career that spanned nearly 80 years, Niemeyer (1907-2012) paved the way for Brazil’s urban modernization as South America’s innovative, prolific architect. His 600-projects list includes distinctive monuments that express what the jury of the Pritzker Architecture Prize stated as “the distillation of colors, light and sensual imagery of his native land.”
On the Sunday night after Ash Wednesday a procession begins of people carrying burning bundles of pinewood chips (called Chienbäse, the Alemannic German for “pinewood besom”) through the medieval town center of Liestal, Switzerland, entering through the city gate from the south. In more recent decades the Chienbäse have been augmented with carts carrying bonfires, with flames often reaching as high as the houses. — Wikipedia
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