Flickr Explore

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Dunny3000

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Does anyone know how to get a photo on the 'Explore' page of Flickr? Apart from the obvious taking good photos, does anyone know the process of how pictures are selected? Do they basically have people who look at thousands of photos? Maybe someone on here has actually achieved this?
 
I think it's a combination of how many view, comments and favourites a photo gets.
 
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/

'Interesting' photos get into Explore.

There are lots of elements that make something 'interesting' (or not) on Flickr. Where the clickthroughs are coming from; who comments on it and when; who marks it as a favorite; its tags and many more things which are constantly changing. Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr.
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Sometimes I wonder how it works... I've actually given up trying to figure it out now! :D

Over the past few years, I've had 78 of 'em (including dropped ones) but how some of 'em got in I'll never understand! ;)

Si
 
It's a combination of things, views, favs, comments, how many groups it's in, geotagging seems to have something to do with it.

I've had a few over the last year or 2, Flickr explore is not what I would use to determine a good photo though.
 
Dunny3000 said:
Does anyone know how to get a photo on the 'Explore' page of Flickr? Apart from the obvious taking good photos, does anyone know the process of how pictures are selected? Do they basically have people who look at thousands of photos? Maybe someone on here has actually achieved this?
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Good question, but if you really do find out! .... They'll change the formula ;)
 
Dunny3000 said:
Does anyone know how to get a photo on the 'Explore' page of Flickr? Apart from the obvious taking good photos, does anyone know the process of how pictures are selected? Do they basically have people who look at thousands of photos? Maybe someone on here has actually achieved this?
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This isn't scientific, but it's based on my own experience of Explore. Doing all of this would count as Explore-gaming.. but if you're desperate for that elusive Explore then it will work.

It's not just views comments and favourites.. there is also a value attached to who is viewing/commenting/faving, where the links in come from and how quickly they arrive.

The important thing to remember is that it's not an absolute thing.. it's all relevant to the other images uploaded that day. A photo that makes Explore one day might not be your most interesting image even by Flickrs own interestingness measure.. it's all down to the highest "interestingness" images on a given day. Some days the standard is higher than others.


Take an interesting photo, some subjects attract more views and comments than others. Do something a bit different that makes people wonder how you did it. Long exposure, night shots, "cool" strobist shots are all popular. "Angsty teenage girl" is also very popular if you fit into that category. Introduce something to a group that maybe hasn't seen it before, or how it's done. There are lots of small, close-knit groups looking for new ideas.

Pick the right day and time to post it. You want a day that doesn't get as many images posted but still gets lots of views. Avoid US holiday weekends and the week following.

Only post one or two images maximum per day (don't dilute your own interestingness). Post early in the day (note Flickr uses GMT). Before 6am is good.

Make sure you leave the EXIF intact.

Make sure it's Creative Commons with blogging permitted.

Tag it appropriately. Use at least a dozen tags, but no more than twenty. Tags like "strobist" and "welding glass" get a lot of views through searches if the image looks good in the thumbnail. Tags like "Canon" and "Nikon" are wasted tags (the camera make and model can be searched via the EXIF).

Post it in 6-8 relevant and useful groups. Strobist is pretty good (a large group but it generates a lot of views), Sigma 30mm is excellent (in my experience), Welding Glass is good. Avoid large groups with rapid front page turnover (e.g. Canon, FlickrCentral).

Include your photo in a couple of *relevant* group discussions.

Participate in a *lot* of discussions in several groups. People often check-up on the photos of posters that provide *useful* advice/information.

Make lots of comments on other peoples photos. Comment every photo on the first two pages of the groups you're putting the photo into. Comment everyone that's commented you recently. Comment everyone that made the comment before/after yours on the last twenty you just commented. Make meaningful comments, "nice photo" isn't a comment.. it's barely punctuation.

Post you image on forums you are a member of for view/comment. Non-photographic forums that don't have a lot of photos posted are better than dedicated photo forums. Post Medium and make sure you link back to the photopage with a note to say that a larger version can be seen there.

Commenting and faving others is something you can start now.


I've never had a front-page Explore.. but I've had a few top-50s (note, there are possibly four different top-100s for any given day according to some rumours). I've never deliberately set-out to get an Explore. But what I've listed is based on observations. Those days I had images get into the Explore pages were in the weeks I had been very active with commenting and group discussions.
 
have had a bit of an explore run lately - number 1 and some front page..

3+ faves and 10+ comments seems to have worked on the last few - dont add to 'post 1 comment 3' type groups, I dont allow blogging or geotag mine and all are set to all rights reserved

this is on scout.. http://bighugelabs.com/faq.php?section=scout

then again.. I had some that if the above was correct should have made explore easily.. but didnt, so who knows really ;)

some pretty random shots get on there.. freaky dolls with big eyes and hands with painted finger nails seem to be popular, god knows why.. I dont think its a big deal really.. but still, I guess its nice all the same :)
 
I don't think there can be any kudos having a photo in explore now. It's populated by total rubbish! If what's there now really represents the best of photography then I am the Queen.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I don't think there can be any kudos having a photo in explore now. It's populated by total rubbish! If what's there now really represents the best of photography then I am the Queen.
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Thats good to hear, Ive never had a single explore in 5 years or more of Flickr.
I must be too good.
 
Never been in it, never looked at it. There was a right stooshy recently when a texture made it in, I remember that.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I don't think there can be any kudos having a photo in explore now. It's populated by total rubbish! If what's there now really represents the best of photography then I am the Queen.
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I think that is very unfair there is still a lot of excellent work makes it onto explore I will concede that there is guff that makes it onto flickr explore often by those that play the flickr game, but that said I still think that the majority of stuff is deserving on explore, I've been lucky enough to have my first and second explore in the last 12 months :thumbs:

Matt
MWHCVT
 
I dont know why people feel it is sooo important to get explore on flickr. Is it because they seek the attention? surely just the pleasure of taking pictures is enough without having to be placed on a pedestal and put in the spot light?

Maybe im just reading to much into it.
 
MWHCVT said:
I think that is very unfair there is still a lot of excellent work makes it onto explore I will concede that there is guff that makes it onto flickr explore often by those that play the flickr game, but that said I still think that the majority of stuff is deserving on explore, I've been lucky enough to have my first and second explore in the last 12 months :thumbs:

Matt
MWHCVT
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I'm very very pleased for you. Let's hope your third one isn't sandwiched between a London police car and a bus in Hull.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I'm very very pleased for you. Let's hope your third one isn't sandwiched between a London police car and a bus in Hull.
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This is that frustration but I can honestly say that on the whole the standard is still high there is the issue of random crap though :(

If anyone is interesting these are the two that made it to explore


257/365 (Explored) by mwhcvt, on Flickr

and


344/365 (Explored) by mwhcvt, on Flickr

Matt
 
I'm amazed anybody gives a flying fart, but they clearly do hence the zillionth thread about it...:shrug:


DigitalRelish said:
"Interestingness changes over time, as more and more fantastic content and stories are added to Flickr."
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GTFO..

fantastic content and stories.......:cuckoo:
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Nice shots!
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Thanks

joxby said:
I'm amazed anybody gives a flying fart, but they clearly do hence the zillionth thread about it...:shrug:





GTFO..

fantastic content and stories.......:cuckoo:
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I never take a photo with a view to it getting on to explore it's a nice bonus to get though at it get's your work out to a wider audience :thumbs: now I like to get as many people to see my work, so may see that as a little on the vain side or self serving and maybe they're right but I always value people taking the time out to look and comment on my work even better when it's more than just simple comments, I have a few photographers that I follow some that I've become friends with from flickr :thumbs:

Matt
 
MWHCVT said:
I never take a photo with a view to it getting on to explore
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So why mention it.. its a ****** photo site, why would anybody shoot for it ???


MWHCVT said:
its a nice bonus to get though at it get's your work out to a wider audience :thumbs: now I like to get as many people to see my work, so may see that as a little on the vain side or self serving and maybe they're right but I always value people taking the time out to look and comment on my work even better when it's more than just simple comments, I have a few photographers that I follow some that I've become friends with from flickr :thumbs:

Matt
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Yes, it does appear a shade needy, and when I say shade, I mean the beginning and end of everything in the known universe type shade needy...
nothin wrong with sharing though, I just find expectation really really ******* irritating..
 
joxby said:
So why mention it.. its a ****** photo site, why would anybody shoot for it ???





Yes, it does appear a shade needy, and when I say shade, I mean the beginning and end of everything in the known universe type shade needy...
nothin wrong with sharing though, I just find expectation really really ******* irritating..
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John I don't really understand what point it is that your trying to make, what I do find curious that you find it necessary to swear assuming that what has been censored is indeed a profanity :shrug:

Matt
 
I don't think I can make the point any plainer, but you are welcome to avoid addressing the "point" by drawing attention to a few stars if you want.

Lets not get drawn in to word fencing, what I find irritating is the expectation that peeps are going to want to see your work, that Flickr is going to want to explore it, that every time you post something it ought to get some sort of response from anyone that views it, and the more people that view it the more responses you will get.
This expectation is everything that is wrong with the ethos of photo sharing, the clue is in the title, its photo sharing, you share your work.......nowhere in that ideal does it say, you share = you receive.
Flickr is all about expectation, I think that expectation can be really quite destructive, to a point where you shoot for website comments and not for yourself.....which is star star star star star star star madness imo.
 
joxby said:
I don't think I can make the point any plainer, but you are welcome to avoid addressing the "point" by drawing attention to a few stars if you want.

Lets not get drawn in to word fencing, what I find irritating is the expectation that peeps are going to want to see your work, that Flickr is going to want to explore it, that every time you post something it ought to get some sort of response from anyone that views it, and the more people that view it the more responses you will get.
This expectation is everything that is wrong with the ethos of photo sharing, the clue is in the title, its photo sharing, you share your work.......nowhere in that ideal does it say, you share = you receive.
Flickr is all about expectation, I think that expectation can be really quite destructive, to a point where you shoot for website comments and not for yourself.....which is star star star star star star star madness imo.
Click to expand...

But I don't shoot to get views, I shoot what I like, yes I do make sure that I put my photo's into the appropriate groups to make sure that if that's what people are looking for they'll find it :thumbs: but I don't actively hunt out views, all I said was I appreciate what I get from people if they do look at my work/comment
 
It gets to Explore by an algorithm using views, comments and number of favourites.
It is not a panel of people deciding which photos are good!

This makes sense as a high combination of those factors means that there is a good chance it is a good photo, and generally they are.

My wife's photography concentrates around her artistic hobby. She is in a number of groups who are all chatty, view, make comments and favourite each others work.
She regularly gets in explore. This is how some poor photos manage their way in but that is fairly uncommon (not my wife's obviously - just in case she reads this)
 
ernesto said:
This is how some poor photos manage their way in but that is fairly uncommon (not my wife's obviously - just in case she reads this)
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Actually I don't think it is uncommon. There is a lot of mediocre stuff in Explore.
 
wow, this is an old thread going by my comment up above..

not been 'explored' for a long time which is a blessing IMO as all it ever brought for me was the bloggers and people posting links to their photos :)
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Actually I don't think it is uncommon. There is a lot of mediocre stuff in Explore.
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It may not appeal to you and you may view it as mediocre but that doesn't mean a lot of other people will feel the same.

The vast majority are decent photos and the ones that stand out as "why the hell is that there" are things such as poor photos of pets which are in groups where they just happened to have hit all of the criteria.
 
It's a popularity measure, an aggregate of community engagement with the images posted. Even if you could find a consensus on what is "quality" as applied to a subjective, emotional medium such as photography, how do you propose automating the selection of images that meet that definition?

Explore is fun, it's a way of seeing images that might have some interest, it's about the Flickr community and what it's looking at and talking about. If you're taking it so seriously, why? it just comes across as sour grapes and getting bitter about someone elses photo getting more attention than yours. And what's wrong with buses anyway?

Lighten up and shoot.. :thumbs:
 
ernesto said:
It may not appeal to you and you may view it as mediocre but that doesn't mean a lot of other people will feel the same.
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I now agree with you 100% and have changed my mind 100%. Probably because I've had 2 in explore these past few days :lol:

However, both subsequently dropped. Maybe because of the subject matter :shrug:
 
My wife gets a high % of her photos in Explore (she only posts up a couple a week)

She is into a subject matter that attracts friendly groups of people where a high number of them view, comment and favourite each others work. She has her own theory outside of those 3 criteria and feels that initially posting the images to just 2 or 3 groups (rather than blitzing loads of groups) helps matters.

I like her photos and it is all the proof you need that you don't always have to know the technicalities of using a camera to produce nice images. She understands and uses Aperture and not interested in learning anything else (she has a 50/1.7 so understanding Aperture is a good start!). This works for the subject matter but would clearly limit her if she went outside of that. I tell her that when I am feeling up for a feisty discussion...
 
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