If you’re not, you’re missing out! In my occasionally humble opinion, flick is the single best thing a modern photographer can do for their art. Flickr is simple to navigate, a pro account is affordable and a few hours a week spent browsing, commenting and sharing on flickr can get more eyes on your work than you may think!

And did you know The Hideout has a flickr group? With the recent departure of The Hideout forum, I offered to set up a flickr group to give us somewhere to share our work and chat that didn’t require the admin workload of the former forum. As we get more members and action, we’ll do fun themes and challenges and feature the winners here on the blog! So you get some fun, conversation and a chance to get a little attention for you and your fabulous work!

In the meantime, here’s some tips for getting the most out of flickr!

• Tag, tag, tag! Tag every image, with every word you can relate to it. Tags help people search flickr and can even bring you some print sales!
• Can the IMG_874 and title your images. Titles and descriptions take your image from a random image to a piece of work. It shows you care about the presentation of your work.
• Be picky. Display your best work. If you’re iffy on an image, skip it.
• Be organized. Use sets to group your related images and then group your sets into collections. This will help viewers navigate to the work that interests them the most and makes it much easier for you to find images quickly.
• Comment, favorite and make galleries! Flickr users love comments and will often return the favor. It’s a great way to get feedback, make new contacts (people whose work you like, friends, etc) and get more visits to your photostream. Click the little “favorite” icon when you see work that knocks your socks off and you’ll eventually have an enormous inspiration pool. I like to watch mine in slideshow form when I’m feeling uninspired. You can also do that in groups…anywhere! Galleries allow you to curate your own gallery of work you love on flickr. This does great things for networking, inspiration and keeps your art eye sharp!
• Fill in that profile! The often-overlooked profile page is crutial! Don’t be a faceless drone, let people know a little about you, link your website and have friends write you testimonials.
• Have fun. Flickr is my ultimate fun work. You’re spreading your images around, getting inspired and staying on top of trends and techniques. You just can’t beat it!

Thank you to EVERYONE for your participation.  This was NOT an easy contest to judge.  So difficult in fact that we have decided to award 2 “runner up” awards as well. There are instructions for the winners at the end of this post on how to collect your prize!

Introducing the Hideout Magazine’s self portrait contest winners!

1st prize goes to Aaron Norton with his image: “Lemon-y Little Jack Horner”. A brilliantly executed conceptual self portrait. Cheers Aaron!

2nd prize goes to Katelyn Demidow for her entry: “Hippie Soul”  This image… Continued

In the 2 years that I have been doing self portraits, I have felt great personal and emotional challenges.  I have felt guilt over the egocentricity of the artform. I have felt horrible about how I look in the images. I have been forced to confront my feelings about my own face and body, and it’s perceived “imperfections” as well as how I see myself, and how I present myself to others through this art form.  I have had to DO what I ask of my models on a regular basis…which is no easy task.  Aside from the personal… Continued