Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Flickr Works

Grand Theft Auto: Midwest City begins with Sydney looking for ways to avoid her homework and playing video games instead.  In an attempt to fill a void in life (not being a gangster), Sydney plays the new Grand Theft Auto game.  Sydney is controlling the character named Ryan.  Ryan’s current objective is to search for a car to hijack.  He stumbles upon a black Chevy and goes for it.  First, he pulls the driver, Dyllan, out of the car and then repeatedly beats him in the head with a crow bar until he kills him.  After driving for about 25 yards, Ryan kicks the passenger, Marc, out of the car giving him severe road rash.  Once he finally gets rid of the civilians, Ryan proceeds to Chase Bank.  He robs the bank with ease and leaves as a millionaire.  Satisfied with her progress in the game, Sydney puts down the controller and decides to get back to her homework.

When we first received this assignment, my initial reaction was this is going to be long and difficult.  Turns out that I was totally wrong.  I was only nervous for I had never done anything quite like this before (you have a knack for that, Professor).  And that’s based solely on the fact that it was just a fun project to take part in.   
            There are two quotes from two different readings that I would like to talk about because one defends the other.  “That success is at least as much a product of Flickr itself as it is a product of the contributing photographers” (Rebecca Blood, Web blog). The next quote makes a strong case for this statement.  “…Flickr user Laretta Houston uploaded her first image onto the service… She describes the progression from amateur to pro in a series of milestones” (Jennifer Marderazo, article).  In a matter of eight months, Houston went from buying her first camera (which was extremely) to setting up her very own studio and is now a professional photographer.  This just happens to be only one of many cases.  For instance, a photographer on Flickr who goes by the name of “Miss_M” experienced similar success.  Miss_M posted a photo in response to an advertisement through Flickr which asks others on the website to post and describe the story behind the photo that made them popular.  Miss_M posted this photo knowing it was not her best work, but surprisingly she received an offer from the editor of the “Everything” magazine. She sold the photo and it was used in a story within the magazine.  On the Flickr website, Miss_M is known as a “pro” photographer.  I do not know how long it took her to reach that status.  However, she still had a photo, which she considered “not that good” sold and published in a magazine.  This is another prime of example of a person who went from “unpopular” to a “pro” on Flickr with a published photo in the professional media industry.  Follow this link for Miss_M’s picture:

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