2012-03-23
post/19803755373
2011-06-21
post/6758798231
2011-01-20
Anti-Attribution Tumblrs: A Complaint
I’ve noticed a couple of Tumblr blogs recently that use images posted in the Text post type, rather than the Photo type. This is particularly annoying when you’re trying to determine image attribution.
Generally I run across them through ffffound. Here’s an example: it’s a nice picture, but I want to credit it more thoroughly than just linking to the blog on which everyone saw it. I head over to the Tumblr and open the archive page, and I get this:
This is useless for scanning for an image. Thankfully tools like TinEye exist, which let me find the actual site that hosted the original image.
Of course, Tumblr somewhat encourages other anti-attribution patterns: images being reposted to ffffound from people’s dashboards is one of the more obvious ones. Still, it’d be nice if people avoided adding to them.
(Source: convoy)
2010-12-03
Flickr Tip: Delving For Good Photos
It’s already the time of year when people look back and try and pick out the best of the year. If you’re inclined to do that with the photos you’ve posted to Flickr, here’s a good way.
The search function has three key features that make this work. Firstly, the “interestingness” (a somewhat arbitrary, but still useful, measure of how, well, interesting a photo is) is available as a criteria for sorting. Secondly, there are ways to filter by time (either by date taken, or by date uploaded). Thirdly, you can limit photos to your own photostream.
Putting that all together gives you a this URL: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=&m=text&s=int&d=taken-20100101-20101231&w=me
The arguments, from right to left, make it search through all photos (that’s the q=, an empty query), in text mode (as opposed to tag mode), searching by interestingess, taken between the dates specified, and limited only to photos by “me” (which magically maps to the logged in user). If you’re tempted to find a best photo from those you’ve uploaded this year, why not use that as a starting point?
2010-09-01
post/1047147707
“Top People”, a Rank newsreel about crane operators, complete with some gorgeous shots (like the woman looking out of her top-floor Golden Lane flat at a passing tower crane). (Again, via that Phil Gyford.)
2010-03-26
post/474858436
If you’re creating a “digital time capsule”, it’s best not to make it an application. There’s a lesson here for everyone rushing into application development for online media.
