flickr just launched a new interface. Here’s some screenshots. I don’t think I can be objective about it; of course, I’ve got habits to break and new ones to learn, and that will take a while. I will say I trust them and so am hopeful for good things.
Update: I just noticed this: There are sneaky advertising links buried in flickr!
Taken with a Nikon D50.
is now
Taken with a 
D50.
and that logo is a hotlink to a Nikon advertising site.
I have completed the mammoth task of editing and posting all my Asia pictures to flickr, with the completion today of the set from India (Mumbai and Bangalore). Previously: Bangkok and Hong Kong
. All told, about 650 pictures.
Whew.
I’ve written two long pieces (and many smaller pieces on this blog) about our trip. An article for Core77 here and a more personal assessment here.
The process of taking time and reviewing the pictures with increasing distance from the event is pretty interesting, giving me a chance to reflect and revisit, to see things that I certainly didn’t see at the time I opened the shutter, and through the interactions on flickr, to gain insight and clarifications about things I observed but did not understand, especially with the pictures from India, where a pretty good dialogue has emerged (seen in the comments posted on the various pictures in that set Oops, not any more). The document of the experience is scattered, the interactions are scattered, but as the publisher of this content, I’m personally at the hub of all of it, so I’m taking full advantage. But clearly technology (even the ability to take several hundred pictures on a two week trip) is enabling some powerful behaviors; we know this, of course, but stepping back and noticing it is always pretty cool.
I’ve begun to post pictures from Bangkok to flickr – there are tons more to come, but the set is beginning to accumulate some mass, so go check it out!
I’ve finally finished posting 269355 pictures from Hong Kong. I put every one most of them through Photoshop and tweaked and optimized and cropped. Uploaded ’em all to flickr, tagged ’em, titled ’em, wrote a description, and sent them to various groups. No wonder it’s taken more than three weeks.
Still to come is Bangkok and India.
Here are just a few samples.
Sorta Tasty Snax
Schoolgirls and Bag-Noodles To Go
Panties on the Street
Burning Incense closeup
White Eyeglasses Frames
Busy Signs
For my class in Design Research Methods at CCA, I’ve asked the students to start either blogging or adding pictures to flickr. They are ideally doing this regularly, at least weekly, but I think it’s taking some time to ramp up.
I’ve asked them to think like design researchers and use this as a way to practice noticing stuff, and telling stories. They can blog whatever they want, but at least one piece per week should be something interesting they noticed – something funny or odd or curious or unusual – in their daily lives. An experience, a design, a need, a person doing something odd. Just to learn to pay attention to that alerting part of our judging selves. Ideally, this will help build the muscles they’ll need for making sense out of the fieldwork they start doing.
Anyway, I’m going to link to ’em all here and maybe some of the folks who read this blog will check out what the class has done. Maybe offer some comments or encouragement. Once they got their feet wet, the hope is that having an audience will actually provide some inspiration, motivation, momentum.
http://blurr1e.blogspot.com/
http://cupanoodle.blogspot.com/
http://dcarchitect.blogspot.com/
http://shambacca.blogspot.com/
http://thegumbyproject.blogspot.com
http://thenbalmer.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/weberdesign/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dearjy NEW
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12187480@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14812574@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37212535@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74386819@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91006549@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benbassat
http://www.flickr.com/photos/justjump/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samdidnotknow/
http://www.myspace.com/homelesswombat
http://www.optionsf.com/blog/
Just a quick note-from-the-field. We’re here in Hong Kong and have been for several days. Really a great city to be a visitor in; if nothing else (and there is lots that is great) the transit system is really incredibly well thought-out.
I’ve taken a huge number of photos already, eaten some interesting food, seen some great architecture and signage. I’m initially struck by the post-SARS hyper-awareness of the potential for disease through bad hygiene – through many public service announcements and warning signs and admonishments about various things like wrapping up your spittle and so on.
We leave for Bangkok tomorrow quite early, so we’re just doing our last few things today.
Not much content here; it’s hard to compose much of relevance at a public internet terminal in a museum. I can’t wait to share photos and stories here and on flickr in more detail!
I have put up a photoset on Flickr of the Balmy Alley murals in San Francisco’s Mission District.
I created a flickr tag “autophagia” for any signs of animals preparing to serve and/or eat themselves in the name of cuisine.
I’ve started things off with the Chick -N – Coop Hof Brau sign in Daly City, CA, depicting a chicken in an egg-cup serving up a platter of chicken. Mmm, mmm, tasty!
