The Joy of Photoblogging!

Posted byYan Sham-ShackletonPosted inGlutter's Plugs and Doodles

Lately, I have spent a lot of my not very much spare time exploring the photoblogging phenomenon as through flickr. I really enjoy the concept of the site which is a "pool," of photos from everyone, as well as specific topics. Ones I like best are surveillance, populated architecture, boring, and street art.

I really enjoy looking at other people’s images, and it has reminded me of my original medium which is photography and how stills can tell a completely different story than that of digital video.

So far I have started with the camera phone as it completely freeing. After years of dragging large and heavy machines on my shoulders, and around my neck, suddenly I have a palm size, one hand, no weight machine, that doesn’t need focusing, no flash, and nothing you can adjust. Mainly you have to just dive into the photo and hope for the best. I think it brought some joy into image capturing that i haven’t felt in a while, as it’s so simple and easy. I can click away all the time and then just send them into the site via a GPRS connection.

And the other thing I really like about photoblogging is the complete lack of the "Cult of personality," which word blogging seems to excel at. Your skills, eye, and photos say everything. It’s a show not tell situation. It’s one’s work that gets the attention, one’s subjects, use of color, etc. Not who you are. To be able to continually be personally creative and add to the public sphere while being silent is a welcome change for me. As with much of my life right now, trying to work on a portfolio for my MFA applications along with increasing work load. Images take precedent over thoughts and words.

I am over there a lot. Actually that is completely untrue. I am hardly there, but my camera phone is always with me. It’s about as close to "Wouldn’t it be nice to see what other people are seeing through their mind." as it so far can get.

This is flickr

http://www.flickr.com/

And this is how I see the world around me

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glutter/sets/

Published by Yan Sham-Shackleton

Yan Sham-Shackleton is a Hong Kong writer who lives in Los Angeles. This is her old blog Glutter written mostly in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2007. Although it was a personal blog, Yan focused a lot on free speech issues and democratic movement in Hong Kong. She moved to the US in 2007.

One thought on “The Joy of Photoblogging!”

  1. Please don’t spam this site even if it’s “topic” related. If you want my or other people’s attention, one should contribute. If you have something interesting enough to say, we might just be intrigued by who is behind the link. All the links of your site has been removed. The first time is okay. The second is not. Not to mention the link goes nowhere.
    thanks.

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