Old photos – horrific experiences or great fun? Whatever you think when you recognize yourself on an old photo I’m sure it evokes certain emotions. I think it’s a great fun to rummage in old photo albums with friends – sometimes wondering how different we looked when we where younger or just remembering good times we spent together. That is why I try to have my digital camera with me whenever possible to catch all the versatile chapters in life. Over the years my computer became my digital photo album which I can organize easily thanks to the technical development.

Welcome to the online photography world

If you not only want to share your photos with your family and friends at home Flickr gives you the easy opportunity to share them with the whole internet (klick here to read wikipedia’s description). To say it with Amy Shuen’s words: “Flickr essentially gives away the services that amateur photographers need and want most: Photo sharing; online storage; and indexing, tagging and photo inventory.”

But Flickr is not only to the amateur photographer’s advantage who can organize his photos, drops into a creative photo database or may even be discovered if talented – it is an interesting communication platform from the corporate perspective, too.

Flickr stream: “Michel Comte Retrospektive”

I’m sure you have heard of Michel Comte, one of the most sought-after fashion and magazine photographers in the world (he portrays numerous celebrities from the world of art, music and entertainment. In addition to portrait photography and fashion he moved towards photo-reportage and documentary). Currently, the exhibition “Michel Comte Retrospektive” can be visited in the ‚NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft’ in Duesseldorf, Germany.

Michel Comte – 360° from nrwforumduesseldorf on Vimeo.

To promote the exhibition a number of Web. 2.0 tools were used like communication via the website of the ‘NRW Forum’ and a blog which reflects the course of the exhibition. But the most noteworthy idea was to create a Flickr stream. Especially in this case it was a very good idea to put a photo show on Flickr – a platform where all the passionate photographer’s come together to share and exchange their experiences about photography. Doubtlessly, these people are the prospective visitors of the exhibition. To my mind a promising step in the communication concept of the exhibition.

Benefit from Flickr as a professional

To end up for today I’d like to point out two tips of Seth Godin how you can benefit from Flickr as a professional. You will find a full description of them in his blog post ‘Where to find great ideas and arresting images (for free)’:

1. If you need photos for a presentation or website or brochure, try Flickr.

2. When you are trying to brainstorm, Flickr is a great place to find connections between ideas that hadn’t occurred to you.

Why not try them out on the job floor?