48,000 Photos and Not a Single Yellowed Corner

If one wishes to scroll through a lifetime of memories without the hassle of a slide projector, the Flickr album view is wonderfully efficient. I joined the platform back in 2005. Returning from a trip to the BC Okanagan, it became immediately apparent that emailing holiday snaps was a dreadful way to share them. Now, the archive has swollen to somewhere between 48,000 and 49,000 images.

It has been a stroke of sheer brilliance having a dedicated repository to store and share images over the last 21 years. The very first photographs, uploaded several decades ago, still sit exactly where they were left.  Others, some scanned from various parts of my life, joined them. Miraculously, these digital pixels have not yellowed one little bit. It remains an absolute privilege to be able to quickly search for nearly every image I have ever seen through a viewfinder or captured via a phone's screen.

 

The screenshot provided shows my album view, organizing the years in reverse chronological order. It starts with the most recent adventures and works backward. However, the ability to search is what makes the collection approachable.  

Observant readers will notice an empty album sitting at the very top, eagerly awaiting fresh content. This Wednesday and Thursday, Jay and I are flying through Montreal to reach Casablanca, Morocco. We will be spending exactly four weeks on an individually-created circular path, winding our way through the ancient cities, up into the Atlas Mountains, and finally back down along the Atlantic coast. Expect that image count to cross the 49,000 threshold very soon.

View my Flickr Album page.

Three Photos I Took (or Created) Today

An Authentic Photograph  

An Obviously Fake Photograph  

A Not-So-Obviously Fake Photograph

Images from Today's Date in the Years 2004 to 2013

Yes, computers and the Internet have allowed me to keep a more organized and thorough story of life than most people find possible.  I went to start today's journal entry and decided to see what I'd done or seen on July 28th in previous years.

I went back to the first July that I owned a digital camera.  I got my little Olympus in the fall of 2003, so the first summer would have been the following year.  As I found taking images easy and free from that point, I've taken shots of something or other nearly every day.  Being able to save them on the Flickr website has been nothing short of a miracle.

I scrolled back to 2004.  Adding these felt quirky and fun for a bit but I quickly got bored with the process and stopped after ten years.  Rest assured, the subsequent dozen years are most probably represented in my Flickr collection too.

2004 - Richmond, BC

  2005 - Seattle, WA from I5

  2006 - BCIT Campus, Burnaby, BC

  2007 - Carnarvon Place Strata BBQ, New Westminster, BC

  2008 - BCIT, NE1 Building, Burnaby, BC

  2009 - Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC

  2010 - A product placement on the apartment dining table, New Westminster, BC

  2011 - A less restricted view from our balcony at 420 Carnarvon St, New Westminster, BC

  2012 - Another Strata BBQ, New Westminster, BC

  2013 - On the Queensborough Bridge with my eScooter, New Westminster, BC

Appreciating the Flickr Website: It Holds My Life.

Wow. A kid born on the day I joined Flickr would now be old enough to vote!

 

I joined when Flickr was based locally in Vancouver, BC, Canada.  My initial pictures made the move down to San Franciso in the summer of 2005 when the site was bought by Yahoo.  I managed to stay with Flickr even when it required a Yahoo ID.  More recently, in 2019, my pictures made the migration to AWS cloud services after being acquired by SmugMug.

This is one of the first two pictures, I uploaded to my Flickr account.  Jay and I had just returned from a trip to the BC Okanagan with friends.  I was looking for a robust place to keep images on the Internet.  Thanks for letting it stay online for eighteen years, Flickr!

Burrowing Owl Winery - 2005 

Standing at the top of the 'Burrowing Owl Winery" in British Columbia. 

Date Taken: June 22, 2005 - 10:31:47 

Date Uploaded: June 26, 2005  - 22:16:29 

EXE Data: 

Olympus C40Z,D40Z
ƒ/8.0 7.5 mm 1/650 100 Flash (off, did not fire) Hide EXIF
Compression - JPEG (old-style)
Image Description - OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Make - OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD
Orientation - Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution - 72 dpi
Y-Resolution - 72 dpi
Software - v553u-76
Date and Time (Modified) - 2005:06:22 10:31:47
YCbCr Positioning - Co-sited
ISO Speed - 100
Exif Version - 0210
Date and Time (Original) - 2005:06:22 10:31:47
Date and Time (Digitized) - 2005:06:22 10:31:47
Components Configuration - Y, Cb, Cr, -
Compressed Bits Per Pixel - 5
Exposure Bias - 0 EV
Max Aperture Value - 2.8
Metering Mode - Multi-segment
Light Source - Unknown
Flashpix Version - 0100
Color Space - sRGB
File Source - Digital Camera
Scene Type - Directly photographed
Interop Index - R98 - DCF basic file (sRGB)
Interop Version - 0100

Camera ID - 721

Camera Type - Point and Shoot

Wet Outside, Comfy In Here!

 

Okay, I'd kind of forgotten what storms off the Pacific are like. This week we're in the middle of the first set of low-pressure systems of the autumn. It was a tiny bit exciting but only because I know we're not going to be here to see them all winter. I used the concept as an AI inspiration.

It feels nice having the gas fireplace blazing and most of the lights on in the apartment.  Today, I copied many photos off Jay's MS OneDrive.  That is the easiest way for him to use phone pictures on Facebook or on a computer WhatsApp chat.  The photos automatically get uploaded to OneDrive.  Over the course of a summer, much of the 5GB can get filled.  I will use a 64 GB USB memory stick to copy them off anytime it gets too full.

First Up is Albania

I wanted to choose a single photo from each of the 73 countries and territories I have visited.

This was Albania in 2017. Click it to open a special Flickr album. Because I have organized the images alphabetically, it will appear as the first. See the remaining ones on the photo-sharing website. Read the country titles by hovering over them with your mouse (or finger). See any photograph much larger by selecting one.

Image #32132 as of April 29, 2021

Click the screenshot to load my Flickr albums.

Everyone says, "Sharing is Good."

I have over 30,000 personal photos on Flickr, the image uploading site. That sounds like a lot, but I started my collection fifteen years ago. A more amazing situation is that I've set all of them with a Creative Commons License.

Although that relinquishes my ability to ever profit from my work, it does free up the images to be more widely used by others. (My career was teaching, so I feel strongly that a lot of information should be freely accessible.) Because of my magnanimousness I find my photos used all over the Internet.

In fact, Google sent me two, new instances in as many days. The link for each news article can be found on the line below the picture. Click it to read directly from the sources. Both are related to the present COVID-19 situation although both photos were snapped well before it had become severe.

The main image here was taken in our apartment rental in Kuala Lumpur last month. The second image is quite old. It was taken on a trip to visit Lynne and Joel Thomas in their desert home in Washington State in 2009.


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Capturing an Image of the Neighbourhood

Day 129 - I've lived in many, many different neighbourhoods during my life. We lived in numerous places during a mutual decade of work in the Middle East. Also, since retiring at the end of 2014, Jay and I have lived in locations other than in our community of New Westminster, BC in Canada.

We lived a total of ten months on Aguacate in old town Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and on the east bank in Luxor, Egypt. We stayed in the middle of the Penang island in Malaysia and also not far from the river in Siem Reap, Cambodia for five months. Last year, we had two months near Double Six Beach in Bali, Indonesia as well as three here near Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Jay and I just spent three months in Minuwangoda, Sri Lanka and we're now back in KL. I have loved each neighbourhood and I felt at home in all of these places. Home is where you hang your hat.

However, I have very few photos of typical neighbourhood scenes from my past. I am aware that, going forward, photos of the ordinary scenes become special with the passage of time. Today, I walked to our nearest drug store. I picked up some medicine for Jay's upset stomach. After I left and crossed the street, I returned just to take a photo. One more picture of this neighbourhood now exists for me.

Disparate Hobbies Collide

Day 82 - I like it when present and future hobbies collide. Really, PCs and smartphones bridge all sorts of technologies. For example, when GPS is added to Internet phone apps and they provide access to payment platforms suddenly whole new categories of businesses become possible. Rideshare comes to mind. And, of course, photography is no different. Once images became digital then image modification became software manipulation.

I've been keen on learning all about personal drones over the last couple of months. The biggest useful product category for the amazing new devices is photography, both still and video. Being able to carry a lens up 120 meters and a few kilometers away provides a whole new world of photographic possibilities.

I've been avidly following a Facebook group about the DJI Mavic Mini. This is the drone I shall order just before we head back to Canada. I'm going to try to time its arrival to match up with ours. I find the global contributions by members fascinating. If you are interested even slightly in drone photography at a fairly affordable price, do take a look.

The picture capabilities of my future mini-drone are somewhat hampered by its weight and price. I noticed quite a few folks on FB were stitching photos together to create panoramas. I only played with that technology decades ago. In order to help catch up, I downloaded Microsoft's free Image Composite Editor. The original may be old but they've kept it up to date for Windows 10.

I made a couple of trials today. The photo below was originally six, overlapping images shot with my regular camera. Even though this is a simple application, the program seems to offer plenty of options. I'm happy that I still use a computer in a way that broadens my horizons.

ec·lec·ti·cism

I follow hundreds of photographers on the Flickr website. I notice that a majority fall into a unique style or genre and that most all their offerings appear very, very similar. I guess consistency might be admirable, but I'm not convinced.

I do not like falling into routines that cannot be broken. This describes my photos but also my whole outlook on life in general. Why people put themselves into such tiny boxes is beyond me.

Today, Flickr received just five images from me. They were all taken today, some by my mobile phone and others with my regular zoom camera. They prove I like 'shaking it up'.











These are things from my day. What can you show me from yours?

You're Being Manipulated

Day 127 - You noticed the guy with a cup, right? The photo contains a whole lot of other people though. I snapped it the other evening at our local night market.

Photos can lie. You've probably known this since you were a kid. However, photos can be manipulated subtly too. Just as an author carefully chooses the words he or she uses, a skilled photo editor brings important features to the forefront or hides parts which don't help tell the story.

In the photo above, I not only cropped the edges but also blurred the surrounding folks. I made all the edges darker and less distinct too. Furthermore, I toned down the colour of the folks around the guy with a cup. There is nothing in this photo which didn't exist in reality. However, this is not how the scene looked when the image was saved by the camera. In the original image, you might not have noticed the guy with a cup.

It's 2019. I Retired in 2014.

Day 61 - After realizing we had only a few more days to view a Bali sunset, I agreed with Jay to walk to the beach in the evening. Taking photographs of beach sunsets seems like a common pastime in these parts. I dutifully carried on the tradition by taking a photo of someone else taking a photo of the sunset.



I don't feel guilty that this and my other photographs may be the most important activity I accomplished today. Living a life where every minute belongs to us seems second nature now. I may pay for our personal free time with a reduced income, but hey, I seem to have enough to take pictures of people taking pictures of sunsets. That's as much as I need.

I don't limit myself to images of our 'old sol'. Here's a photo taken yesterday. It's not art, but I think it is interesting enough to merit a short glance or two.

Not 16:9? Then It's No Longer 'Normal'

I don't mind carrying around with my Nikon with the huge lens. It's heavy but I'm fairly butch. I like to snap things around me although I wouldn't classify myself as a serious photographer. I did find a phone cannot 'cut the mustard' when it comes capturing those far away objects.

However, the baby pinecone was the first time I tried the close-up setting in Open Camera. I like the app much better than the native app which shipped with my OnePlus 6.

I shoot almost exclusively in 16x9 and have for a few years now. It seems the normal way for me to frame a photo now. This is not an option in my new phone's native camera app. I know, as others are quick to point out, that I am wasting pixels on the top and bottom of my photos. However, my images are never printed, ever!

When viewed casually, they are seen on the screen of a computer or phone, and when shown publicly, they show up via Flickr on my living room television. If I were to include those 'extra pixels' in an image, I'm left with the traditional black bars like the type seen on pre-HDTV shows and movies. I'll take filling up the screens that matter, thank you.

Don't try to tell me that a 19:9 aspect ratio is a better option, Oneplus engineers; it's most definitely not!

I Shoot Pictures to Remember

Day 125 - I find the power of an image absolutely amazing. I can look at one on a screen and think back to a location long abandoned in my head. I like saving the 'ordinary' for later personal perusal. The good thing about saving images nowadays is that they can follow one around to any location one happens to be. That's powerful and a little magical.

Here are areas around Soi 10 in Pattaya, Thailand on April 2, 2018:

Selfies

Day 83 - Jay wanted to mail a few letters with pictures to his sisters today. We went over to the Queensbay Mall for the Malaysian Postal Outlet on the first floor. The mall's Chinese New Year decorations continue to be up in the central hub. I thought this young family taking their own selfie was cute.


Of the 100 or so Flickr pictures of Jay and me taken over the last 33 years, only a couple of the most recent were taken as selfies.

I sort of miss that people no longer ask strangers to take their pictures. It made for a type of people-to-people connection that seems missing in the world today. I suppose, with some cell phones at $1000 a pop, no one wants to risk a stranger bolting from the scene.

Seven Things from Today

Day 17 - I'm so thankful for digital photography. Remember when there were just 24 or 36 exposures on a roll of film? Okay, perhaps you do not; however, take my word for it, people didn't have the luxury of snapping so many shots.

Now taking a photo essentially costs nothing. This is one reason why I like to document stuff. I have always felt that shots do not need to be beautiful to be relevant. In fact, as I look back on life, it's the small, non-special things I want to remember. Taking a lot of pictures can help me do that.


This friendly cat at our bus stop may have had a Siamese ancestor.


Jungle can take over every inch of unused ground.


They're everywhere but I have not eaten in one in years.


This was in front of the Sunshine Plaza on our first visit.


It starts to get dark around 7:00 PM in our neighbhourhood.


We sometimes buy dosa from her to take home for dinner.


Interesting photos need not be all sunsets and rainbows.

Plastered All Over the Internet

Narcissus should have been born at a time when cameras, glass, and the Internet were practically everywhere.



I happened to be passing along the antique shops on Front Street and came across a most magnificent reflection in the window.

It's no secret I've always considered myself astonishingly clever, nearly always right, and quite a gem to look at. I've been trying to convince everyone else about these attributes since I gained the ability to communicate. Sadly, I've discovered others can be slow to accept copious proof even when it's rather painfully obvious.