I’m Cheating on Flickr
I just uploaded photos from our February trip to Colorado to Flickr. It’s May 5th.
In years previous, vacation photos were uploaded the day after we got home. I wanted the world (well, my mother and a few Internet friends) to see who we had seen, where we had been and what we had eaten. I painstakingly took the time to tag my photos well, and thoughtfully constructed my descriptions and titles. I’m not doing that with Flickr these days, and I believe it’s Instagram’s fault.
By the time we got home from Denver, many friends and my mom had already seen some of the highlights — thanks to Instagram. I’d take my phone out of my pocket, take a picture and add a fun filter, and with a single press of a button, my picture was out there for the whole world to see. No waiting until I got to my computer. No downloading and then uploading. No lugging the “big” camera in and out of my bag.
I’ve always loved the interactive, social element of Flickr, but Instagram has that too.
I’m torn now. Does Flickr become storage only? If everyone has already seen a piece of Denver (or New York or wherever) on Instagram, do I need to bother showing them any more on Flickr? What’s a girl to do?!
Nice advertisement for instagram, I was toying with the idea of starting to use Flickr but i think you may have just sold instagram to me
dude. I have been feeling the same way. Mostly sad and really, really missing flickr from like.. 2008. when we all first met and everyone commented and all of that. I’m still posting, thanks to the Project365 of Terrible Ideas, but the urge/motivation to add the descriptions/comments (and upload in a timely manner) is not really there. I haven’t been able to figure out why I was so obsessed about finally getting instagram, or why flickr makes me so sad now… and you’ve pretty much nailed it. Instagram is where the social interaction is now, even though it’s the same people. I’ll probably keep posting to flickr since it’s how my parents view my photos/how I send things to fb… and as my online archive. (I mean… back to 2005!)
But I don’t know. It’s tough.
I know exactly what you mean!! I feel like I do use Flickr mainly as storage now… a catch-all for every photo I take (that’s worthy of being published), whether it’s sent there from my iPhone via Instagram, Camera+, CameraBag, etc., or I upload it from my DSLR or point-and-shoot.
Instagram is lacking a lot of features, like being able to tag your photos (unless I’m missing that) and search for them, but if they create a web interface that syncs with the app it will be badass. I do agree that the social aspect of Instagram seems to be taking over for what used to exist over at Flickr. I just don’t know how much of that is because Instagram is The New Hotness or because Yahoo is slowly letting Flickr die by not innovating with it.
Good point. I’ve been wondering if the Flickr folks are sitting in a room somewhere wondering what they can do… I’m forever a Flickr fan, so it’ll be interesting to keep watching.