Flickr: Quantity v. Quality

Say Cheese
Originally uploaded by earthdog.

As anyone looking at my flickr account can see, I have been thinking a blog about photography lately. The newness of my new camera has not worn off. At this rate the newness may not go away for months. It is so cool and I love the kind of pictures I can take with it.

Having this camera makes me want to take lots of photos. I have been averaging 50 photos a day since I got it. That is a lot of photos. Some of them are good, some are no better than my old camera, and some of them just stink. I am taking a lot of photos so I can learn how to use this camera.

I also take a lot of photos because I am looking around more. I spent some money on this camera (and camera accessories) and I want to get the most out of it. It is also very enjoyable to use the camera. In cases where I used to take just one or two photos, I am now taking ten photos.

Now that I am taking so many more photos, I am not sure what I should do on flickr. Up to this point I have seen myself as a journaling photographer. I was just taking pictures of my day to day life to share with everyone. I was not worried about the limits of my camera or my skills. I was just working with what I could.

With my new camera I can take some better photos. One out of every 50 or so look really good. I have noticed that most of my flickr friends who are really good post very few photos. To make those photos stand out you limit how many you post. Maybe you post everyday but you only post one photo.

But there are thousands of really good photographers on flickr right now. There is only one person living my life. If I quite posting the photos of my everyday life, I might lose what makes me special on Flickr.

I guess I need to figure out what I want out of flickr. Do I want it to be about my life or do I want it to be about my photography. I can keep on posting the good pictures, but they will be lost amount the flood of all the other photos I am posting.

I know that my good photos are not what get the most views. Views are about lots of funny things. All of the sudden all of my photos of laptops have over 1000 views.

I have no idea how to messure what people like about my flickr photos.