As part of my catch-up process after returning home last night, I’ve been trying to find relevant content today – mostly blog posts, but also some trekking around on Flickr.
As Buzz noted, there’s a number of highly intriguing real world collisions in Flickr space. Besides the discovery of my arty black and white Apple campus shot being a virtual reverse angle of Mike Smochko’s shot from the place I was shooting, I’ve discovered yet another one, literally moments apart. My quick crowd shot caught D’Arcy Norman almost head on. Amusingly enough, while browsing his photos, I found myself similarly snapped, caught checking my camera.
Now, I love coincidences like this – not only because they are slightly strange and a bit funny, but because they represent something new technologically. A few years ago, these sorts of things were longshots at best – often requiring the same people to be on the same specific group or bulletin board, which for large events is a near-nil proposition. But now, thanks to Flickr and its lovely tagging feature, I can quickly go through an enormous amount of content, filtering down to just the right photos and in this case, lucking out twice for coincidental photos. Had we all still been posting photos to our own Gallery installs, what are the odds I would’ve ever seen either of the above photos?
I can only hope that Flickr continues to grow in user base and picture quantity; that the cost of good quality cameras and cameraphones decreases, as well as the cost of picture messaging; and that people will continue to be unable to resist the urge to take photos of damn near everything. Finding coincidences like this is damn good times.