In the Spring of 2006, I got my first digital camera. I had been taking pictures for years, but developing film/slides was cumbersome and limited the use of my camera. As with many people, going digital changed everything!
Looking for an online place to share my photos, I gave Flickr a try. I found the version available in 2006 easy to use and was excited to also find that there were photo sharing groups and communities as well! It seemed that many plant people had already found Flickr and where discussing various types of rare plants and showing photos of gardens, etc. I joined in and even started a few groups of my own.
I was very active on Flickr for a number of years. Then, in 2013, Flickr made radical changes to their platform. I found it very cumbersome to use and ‘high bandwidth’. It also more or less pushed many of the things I enjoyed about Flickr into the background. I used it less and less. I rarely use it today (2017) but my account is still active.
I regularly get notifications that my photos on Flickr are marked as a ‘favorite’ by other people, and my number of ‘followers’ increases – all this in spite of my inactivity. I may try to get back to using this platform for my photos, but not before I upgrade my internet connection (something I plan to do soon anyway).
Seán A O'Hara 