editorialgirl

So flickr have announced today that Pro members can now post short videos.

My initial reaction was that it’s wrong, all wrong. YouTube is for videos; Flickr is for photos.

Flickr are trying to differentiate their offering (I guess) by limiting video uploads to 90 seconds. They said: “Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of ‘long photos,’ of capturing slices of life to share.”

I posted this on Helluva Forum with a bit of a “pfft” type comment, but then something Maffu said made me think about it differently.

“I think they’re onto something but I think they’ve dug past the gold,” he said. “I really, really like the idea of ‘long photos’, but I think 90 seconds is way, way too long. I’d love to see what people could do with a maximum of two or three seconds of movement. Imagine how much more of the ‘ness’ of an image you could have in these imeos/vidages/vidtures. Think of the scene in Blade Runner where Deckard picks up the picture of (supposedly) Rachel as a child, and for a couple of seconds your can see the shadows of the trees playing across their faces and hear the laughter and the birds singing around them.”

Okay, he lost me with the last bit (not too hot on film references, as you know), but I do see his point and I’m going to strive to make some of these vidages, as well as taking snaps, next time I go out on a shoot.

And I think this is what will make it all right. Only Pro members of Flickr can upload video. These are the people who (should) understand where flickr is coming from. How many of them already take video as well as still photography? This will give them somewhere to put the results, instead of just uploading the photos and leaving the video on the computer. Or, indeed, uploading photos to flickr for peer feedback, and then uploading the video to YouTube to get lost in a sea of mobile phone footage and kittens.

I haven’t abandoned this blog, promise. Life just seems to be flying by too fast for me to write any of it down.

In the absence of time to post anything interesting, .have a look at these photos from the recent flickrmeet at Spaghetti Junction.

I’ve been looking at the stats and I’m amazed at the number of people who check here regularly – I’ll try and post more regularly from now on …

On Sunday 13th I spent the wettest day of the year so far trudging round Moseley and Balsall Heath for this month’s flickrmeet.

Luckily we had arranged to meet at Epic Skatepark, which has a roof – albeit a bit of a leaky one.

Epic is a real Moseley success story. It used to be a tram depot, then it became a “karting centre” that no-one ever seemed to go to and now, thanks to owner Keith Marsden, it’s the biggest skatepark in Europe and doubles up as an occasional – but very welcome – venue for things like gigs and beer festivals.

I’ve always wanted to go in there but, being over the age of 20 (cough) I’ve never had reason to before, so it was great. We spent an hour or so in the skatepark, admiring the place and its dedicated clientele (there were plenty of people in there, despite the weather) and looking completely out of place in our anoraks, then wandered off into the pouring rain.

You can see the rest of the fruits of our labour on flickr.

Co-incidentally, Martin Mullaney has recently had a complaint made against him for this youtube video in which he, his colleague Ernie Hendricks and Epic owner Keith Marsden go for a wander (read: trespass) into the Grade II listed building next to Epic. The building isn’t being looked after at all – it’s falling apart, by the look of it – and Martin’s video highlights some of the concerns that the community has about its future.

Unfortunately, the owner of the building didn’t take too kindly to a Councillor tramping round his property videoing the place (which you might have guessed, if you’ve watched it) and promptly reported him to the Standards Board. Whoops!

I’ve been playing with the tilt shift idea this evening. Not with an expensive lens, obviously, but with Photoshop’s Gaussian blur.

I don’t have any aerial photographs to use, but I tried it with one of the pictures from last weekend’s walk on Bredon Hill:

Anyone got any tips? I know it works better with harsher lighting and a more aerial view …

The first fake miniature photos I saw are still my favourites. They belong to a Swiss photographer called Gérard Pétremand. I especially love his set Pompiers (firemen). Every time I see them – even now, after seeing them a million times – I just can’t make my mind believe that the fire engines are real.

I love this set of photos of bus and train seats on flickr.

I sent the link to a few friends at work last week, only for some bright spark to point out that the jumper I was wearing could have been mistaken for part of the set.

Ha very ha ha.