If I Seem To Act Unkind, It’s Only Me, It’s Not My Mind

Is Flickr Finally Listening To Our Criticisms?

I just noticed a friend of mine on flickr commented on my recent upload (my leading image on this post), saying that it had made “Explore.”

Explore is the section on flickr that has long been intended as the area to feature the most interesting and beautiful content shared on flickr.

Many of us have cringed at finding gems like this there. Please, PLEASE click through. You HAVE to see this hideous photo of a squirrel eating something or other with a moon in the background. If you don’t see this, what else would you have nightmares about tonight? Other favorites from this artist to have hit the Explore section (manipulated horrors) include a dog with moon, and a cat with moon and a WTF WITH MOON.

One phrase comes to mind when viewing: FOR FUCK’S SAKE, REALLY?

The friend’s comment just now (thanks for the heads up, Rebeak!) prompted me to go to Explore and have a look. This is something I haven’t done in a long time because it just became a joke to me to browse there.

I reloaded it several times. I didn’t see anything I wouldn’t call a lovely and inspiring photograph. In fact, I favorited several of the photos that I saw. There were absolutely no animals with moons photos to be seen.

Has flickr started to listen to us? Maybe. Is it too late? Probably.

Related: Here’s an article by Thomas Hawk about some new features flickr just released. Unfortunately, they aren’t looking too awesome.

Have you circled me on Google+ yet? Have I circled you? Give me a shout.

Come Here Often?

Austin City Limits Music Festival – Photography & The Power To Do More With Dell

If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival, I suggest you rectify that next year (or as soon as you can). I’ve been twice now, and it’s such a fantastic music event – and what great people watching!

This year I was really pleased that Dell arranged for me to learn about their collaborative efforts with C3, Arts and Labor, and AMD to bring the festival to millions of viewers live around the world via YouTube. I’m an Apple Fangirl, but I’ve owned Dells for years, and have always been a Dell Fangirl as well. So it was kind of cool to me to find out (as much as I love Apple) that Dell/Adobe Premiere Pro replaced a Mac/Final Cut Pro setup at ACL fest this year, making the process of livestreaming so much more efficient. Did you watch any of the event on YouTube? I’ve seen people who did talk about it, and it was definitely a success. The Power to Do More definitely rocked out hard this year at ACL. It was fun and interesting to witness that, and I’m really appreciative that I got to enjoy and shoot the festival.

Dell also provided a really fun opportunity: The Speed of Thought Slow-Mo Booth. Several of us who got to go backstage and learn about the awesome tech also got to make these really fun 1200-2500fps slow motion videos. Check them out! I thought my hair flip was pretty rad, but I think Scoble beat me with his water balloon. (Delta Spirit, Fitz & The Tantrums, and Little Hurricane did videos, too, among others.)

Learn more about the slow motion videos as well as the switch from Apple to Dell behind the scenes at ACL by listening to thisinterview of Erik Horn of Arts and Labor by Robert Scoble. Also, check out this post about all the behind the scenes tech and how it worked by Thomas Hawk.

In addition to learning about the livestreaming setup, I was lucky enough to have Dell & Richard Binhammer graciously arrange for me to have photo access at ACL, which means I got into the photo pits (along with Thomas Hawk & Robert Scoble) at the fronts of the stages.

I was able to photograph so many different musical performances over those 3 days that my head was spinning (in the most awesome way). So many acts! So much work! So much running back and forth from stage to stage! SO FUN AND AWESOME. Thank you, Dell!

I hope you enjoy these photos. I’ve been working on getting what I feel are the best of them ready just to show you guys and my G+ friends. There are so many, so I’m only sharing a handful of them in this post. I’ll be sharing more of them as time goes by. If you want to see all the photography I share every day, don’t forget to circle me over at Google+ by clicking here for my profile.

Which photo is your favorite?