Today I decided to look at my Flickr stats and see where people have used my flickr photos on the internet. All my photos are Creative Commons which means that they are available for download/use with the condition the user credits me as the photographer.
The search results were surprising at times. My pictures have appeared personal blogs, professional websites, in articles and on tumblr. Some of the websites are in foreign languages, like German or Spanish, and the rest in English.
For most of my photos, I think it’s pretty cool that people liked enough them to use it across the web, especially since this increases my exposure as a photographer. But for some of my other photos….it’s just odd. I’ll explain more about that in a bit.
Below is a collection of some my photos that I’ve found on various websites through this search. A couple of my photos are popular and can be viewed on various websites, especially the Superhero Valentines. The Superhero Valentines are super popular. Several articles discussing online dating have used them, like the Spanish Website Delgada y Guapa and The Dating Weblog.
Buscar pareja en el internet by Delgada y Guapa
This next photo comes from an interesting article by Damon Young on the website “The Good Men Project“. In this article it is posited that women and men CANNOT be simply “friends” (especially if they are roughly the same age) because invariably one person or both of them will feel an attraction to the other, thereby voiding the whole “platonic love thing.” I enjoyed reading this article as it discussed various good points.
Another popular photo is my “Irreconcilable Differences” photo which is one I have also seen on a few websites, like Strom.Idealo (website in german) and Frikelia (website in Spanish)
German Website
Spanish Website -->
Now in terms of websites that use my photos, I get a lot of photo views from Squidoo. Squidoo apparently automatically generates photos from Flickr for various articles. As a result of this, I’ve gotten a lot of hits on the photo of my friend’s tattoos under the category “Finding Cute Tattoos, on the photo of my wombat stuffed animal under the category “Pet Wombat”, and lately, a photo of mine with a quote from Alice in Wonderland under the category “Life Quotes for Facebook.”
However, out of all my photo usage, I really like the following two. The first is a collection on Tumblr devoted to showing how beautiful curly hair can be. I like it because there are so many great photos on here, that it’s an honor to have my photo be among them. My friend who is featured in the photograph, Gigi, thought it was pretty sweet too 🙂
Curly Hair -- my photo 2nd from right
The next comes from a blog post by Ashlee Sadler discussing Introverts and Extroverts. The photo seems to fit surprisingly well with the topic of discussion.
Ashlee Sadler's blog
Now I come to the part where I discuss the photos I think are oddly placed. Let’s start with this photo:
This photo of mine accompanies an article about how online marketers should use lists to promote their websites. Why do I have a problem with this?
I dislike this photo immensely. I only posted it on Flickr because of the few photos I took for the daily shoot for the day, it was my best which isn’t saying much. So the fact someone actually used it somewhere else on the internet is embarrassing. Not to mention: it’s a personal list. A random, hastily scrawled list that if someone actually took the time the read, they would be like “what the hell is she writing about?!” So taken out of context and used for this web article about online marketing lists, it is super odd to me and way too personal. >.< Obviously I shouldn’t post personal things under Creative Commons unless I am okay with them being used, but honestly, this photo? Never in a million years would I have thought that someone would be desperate enough to use such a crappy photo. Lesson learned for the future. :/
The next photo also seems out of place to me. It’s part of a collection centered on crutches, which works because my photo has crutches in it, but at the same time, it’s weird because it is surrounded by all these photos of an intense looking emo girl. It is just a such a disconcerting jump going from a very goofy photo to a set of serious ones. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link for this site now, but I shall post it once I find it again!
My photo: the only bright one in the bunch, or top left
So what has all of this taught me? People will use your photos in somewhat surprising places. Expect this if you are are posting on the Commons. Also, appreciate when people link back to you so you know exactly where your photos end up. 🙂