Thoughts on #blogjune 2016

Well, how did it go?  On 1 June I blogged here about "to blog or not to blog" and I guess ultimately I couldn't stop myself.  Yes, I blogged every day for the month of June - to a greater or lesser degree.

My first and only post in Hecuba's story, i.e. here, was the one on 1 June. I did 8 blog-posts in the Librarian and the Kitchen, and then I did 21 quite short posts over at Hecuba's Reflections, my Tumblr blog.

So what does all this mean in the context of my reflections in January about blogging and generally about "web 2.0" stuff? I decided then in January not to set myself any blogging targets for 2016, but I know I felt that, if I were going to blog, it was likely to be on the Librarian and the Kitchen.  I also talked during #blog12daysxmas about my ongoing addiction to Flickr.

So this month confirmed all of that for me.  I didn't set out in June with any plan, and I didn't really know whether I would even try to complete #blogjune. But I did 8 posts on the Librarian and the Kitchen, bringing my ytd total of posts up to 26 - already more than double what I did last year. I am even wondering if in 2016 I will equal my all-time best for that blog in 2008 when I first set it up. A contributing factor to this has certainly been the current course I am doing on Futurelearn, a course which combines history with cooking and historical recipes to be played with. However, only three of the 8 were course-related.

Some people doing #blogjune, I think starting with @librarianidol, pointed to the value of #blogjune in giving a daily snapshot of life for a month. I thought about that, but knew really I didn't need that snapshot.  For years my daily snapshot has indeed been a snap, and posted there in Flickr's PAD for me to reflect on at month's end or year's end. And this is what my Tumblr posts reflected in #blogjune.  They were short comments focusing on a photo, mostly my PAD but not always. So most of my blogposts (21) were reflections on the photos that document my life.  I quite enjoyed doing it and it certainly wasn't a chore. But will I continue doing it?  I really doubt it. I'll probably just wait for another opportunity like #blog12daysxmas.

What #blogjune has also confirmed for me is that although I remain very interested in technology and could have blogged about many things (e.g.regular bulletins from the Webbys provide a wealth of new and innovative things to talk about) I no longer have the passion to write about technology. Part of this has to do with my interest having moved away from libraries where technology was and is a critical issue. But I wonder if it is just me, or whether those heady days of endless technological possibilities have now passed for those who remain connected to libraries?

I heart Flickr! #blog12daysxmas Day 8

Now that it is 2016, I can start to use #blog12daysxmas as an opportunity to check out how I have performed over the year in the tasks that I set myself at the beginning of 2015.  That should have been easy.  But last week when I went back to my blogs to review my last #blog12daysxmas, I realized that not only did I not finish the task, but I also didn't set myself any tasks for the coming year.  Well, I didn't blog about them at any rate. I certainly had tasks that I involved myself in.

And my involvement with Flickr was certainly one of those.  I first learned about Flickr and joined up many years ago in 2007 when I did 23 Things. I am an inveterate snapper, rather than a careful photographer, and all those snaps land on Dropbox and Flickr, get edited and stay there if I think they are any good.  Since I have had an iphone, my camera has gathered dust and I take my photos on the phone. Often I take them through the Instagram app and share them onto Flickr and Tumblr and Twitter and increasingly on Facebook too so have other communities there, of course. All my devices are linked up to Dropbox and Flickr and Instagram and Tumblr and Facebook and Twitter for ease of sharing.

Although during #blog12daysxmas last year I didn't set myself any challenges, I actually did set myself some as the year commenced on Flickr. So did I meet these challenges? I did!  And I am very happy with myself for meeting them. I completed my 365 photos for PAD2015, iPhone 365 and Project365: my 365th photo for the year heads this post. I also completed Challenge Friday for all weeks of 2015 for myself and, with the assistance of some other members, for the Collingwood Historical Society. In 2015, I administered the 2015PAD group, the Victorian Hotels group and the Victorian Public Library Buildings groups and I contributed to quite a few other groups.  Notable among these was the Trove group which provides a fabulous way for Australians to get their photos onto Trove.

During 2014 I also set up another group jointly with the Collingwood Historical Society, the Abbotsford, Clifton Hill and Collingwood group for photos taken in the area covered by the former municipality of Collingwood and I continued to administer that in 2015.  If you take any photos in that area, please add them to the group. It is so important that we document today which is tomorrow's history. We are building up a good collection of photos in the group, where it is lovely to skim through and view them.  It is also a good place to get discussion going about the places and their history.

So what's my Flickr challenge for 2016? It's much of the same really.  I continue with Challenge Friday (cf16) for both me and the Collingwood Historical Society. This year as part of an experiment we are going to be doing Challenge Friday on Facebook as well as Flickr. By that, I mean that it will be operating on both: some people will be doing just Flickr, some people just Facebook, and others will do both.  It remains to be seen how it goes. It is a way of tapping into people who don't want to join Flickr, as well as people who don't want to be on Facebook.

I am doing my Photo A Day (PAD) for 2016, for 2016PAD, iPhone 365 and Project365.  I continue to administer that group along with my UK colleague, Julia Chandler, as well as administering my hotels, Victorian public library buildings and the "Collingwood" group.  And I will try to organize another Melbourne Flickrup soon, and hopefully we'll have one in England when I visit towards the middle of the year.

Everyone is welcome to join any of these groups! In particular today is the day the 2016 Photo A Day Challenge starts. You can join up here if you want to.

#blog12daysxmas Day 11 My Flickr obsession

Well, I am not really sure whether it would technically be defined as an obsession but Flickr is something I certainly peruse and interact with at least once a day. I first learned about Flickr and joined up many years ago when I did 23 Things.  So I guess I have Helene Blowers to blame for my obsession but really I want to offer thanks again as 23 Things was a life-changing thing for me. And what's a little obsession or two or three or 23?

I am an inveterate snapper, rather than a careful photographer, and all those snaps land on Flickr, get edited and stay there if I think they are any good.  Or, I will admit, sometimes if they are not particularly good but I really want the photo as a memory.  Since I have had an iphone 5, my camera has been gathering dust and I mostly take my photos on the phone. Often I take them through the Instagram app and share them onto Flickr and I have another community there, of course.

But the Flickr community is an important one to me.  We had an inaugural Flickrup dinner at the Fox in Melbourne last year when we gathered together local participants in the 2014PAD and cf14 groups.  It was great fun.  And when I was in England and Wales last year I had two smaller Flickrups in London and Cardiff with people I have met through these same groups.  It is always so good to meet these online friends IRL and talk and talk.

During #blog12daysxmas last year, Flickr certainly featured in the challenges I set myself for 2014. So did I meet these challenges? I did!  I completed my 365 photos for PAD2014 and Project365, and I completed the Challenge Friday for all weeks of 2014 for myself and with the assistance of some other members for the Collingwood Historical Society. In 2014, I administered the 2014PAD group, the Victorian Hotels group and the Victorian Public Library Buildings groups and I contributed to quite a few other groups.  Notable among these was the Trove group which provides a fabulous way for Australians to get their photos onto Trove. During 2014 I also set up another group jointly with the Collingwood Historical Society, the Abbotsford, Clifton Hill and Collingwood group for photos taken in the area covered by the former municipality of Collingwood.  If you take any photos there, please add them to the group. It is so important that we document today which is tomorrow's history.  And there is lots to document in Collingwood today.

So what's my Flickr challenge for 2015? It's much of the same really.  I continue with Challenge Friday (cf15) for both me and the Collingwood Historical Society. I am doing my PAD for 2015, both for 2015PAD and Project365.  Thanks to my UK co-admin Julia, we managed to get the 2015PAD group up while I was suffering from lack of Telstra connectivity. I continue to administer my hotels, Victorian public library buildings and the "Collingwood" group.  And I will organize another Melbourne Flickrup soon!

Everyone is welcome to join any of these groups!  So why don't you come on over to Flickr and check them out?

#blog12daysxmas Post 13 Epiphany

 

I don't usually do an Epiphany post to end #blog12daysxmas but this year I seem not really to have been very reflective about my 2013 challenges, nor to have documented the ones I have set myself for 2014.  So here goes!

Most years I do set myself some challenges which have arisen from my doing the original 23 things all those year ago in 2008. Some of them are challenges that I have done for years, and others are one offs. Read on to hear about my successes and failures in 2013, my learnings and my aims for 2014.

 Blogging
In 2013 I successfully completed #blog12daysxmas in January 2013, both for myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society. I finished it a couple of days late.  In June, I embarked less than satisfactorily in #blogjune for both myself and for the Collingwood Historical Society. That meant I was committing to doing 60 blogposts in June.  I must have been mad!  I have blogged about my madness here. In the end I managed to do 30 blogposts for the Collingwood Historical Society and 22 for myself.  So all up it wasn't too bad.

I maintain to a greater or lesser degree three blogs for myself and one for the Collingwood Historical Society.  The number of posts I did for each in 2013 are as follows:

Collingwood Historical Society 51 posts

Hecuba's Story 40 posts

Hecuba Reads 1 post

The Librarian & the Kitchen 4 posts

I was fairly pleased with the Collingwood Historical Society blog and amazed that with Hecuba's story I actually completed more blogposts than I had since 2009!  However, I am not so pleased with the others. In particular, more people actually read the Librarian and the Kitchen blog than anything else I write and people actually ask me when I am going to post something again.  I do create recipes, note them down on scraps of paper, take photos and them forget to write them up.I could definitely do better.

So, for 2014 what shall I do?  I have already completed #blog12daysxmas though only for myself. And as I am going to be away for part of June, I am not sure that #blogjune is going to be for me this year.  I regret that as I have been doing it ever since it started but sometimes things have to change.  I guess I will assess that as the time. And for the blogs, I am going to set myself some targets and see how I go.

Collingwood Historical Society 52 posts

Hecuba's Story 12 posts

Hecuba Reads 4 posts

The Librarian & the Kitchen 12 posts

#anz23mobilethings

I  started doing #anz23mobilethings enthusiastically when the program first started in May 2013.  I completed the first four things and then stopped.  My stopping seemed to relate to being overwhelmed with my over commitment to #blogjune but then I never went back to it.  However, I was determined to return to it during #blog12daysxmas, and I have now completed Thing 11.  I'm halfway there as Jan Holmquist supportively told me yesterday. I have committed to finish this in January 2014.  I am on a roll with it and enjoying doing it, so I believe I shall succeed.



Goodreads

In 2013 I made a modest commitment to reading 52 books in the year, i.e. an average of one a week.  I more than succeeded in this by reading or rereading more than 106 books. I document almost everything I read on Goodreads and will continue to do so in 2014 with a similar target of 52 books.  But I will try to review my reading a bit more during the year by blogging about it in Hecuba Reads (see above).







Flickr

In 2013, I took part in three Flickr challenges.  Two of them were 365 day challenges, the 2013 Photo a Day Challenge which I administer and the Happy365 challenge which Kathryn Greenhill set up.  I succeeded in doing 365 photos for both of these challenges.  I also took part in one 52 challenge, Friday Photos, a themed weekly challenge which I completed myself and which the Collingwood Historical Society completed with input from me and another member. 

In 2014 I am again participating in one 365 challenge, the 2014 Photo a Day which I am again administering, and in Challenge Friday, which is a follow on from Friday Photos in previous years.  Flickr itself set up a 52 challenge Friday Photos last year which lead to all sorts of confusion so ours has changed its name for the New Year.  The Collingwood Historical Society is also doing Challenge Friday.  I am up to date with all of these so far.  So far so good.

This all seems enough for me to do.  I will be interested to review it in twelve months.  What challenges have you set yourselves?  I'll be interested to read about them.

#blog12daysxmas Post 9 Yay for Helene Blowers!

Fox Hotel , Collingwood

Yes, I am behind again but I have two posts ready to do today.

On the ninth day of Christmas I had a wonderful social media inspired time at the Fox Hotel in Collingwood.  We were having a Melbourne Flickrup for members of the #2013PAD and #fp13 Flickr groups. My involvement in both of these groups started in late 2010 when I joined the #2011PAD along with Caroline Ramsden, the only other Australian in a group that we got involved in because of UK library Twitter friends.

Those of us who gathered were @emerald_j, me, Nicky from Civica, @birdsey7, @pru (a prospective member!), and Fiona and Terence who are fiant and their two children.  Unfortunately @csmramsden, @kat_frame, @bonitoclub and Pat M2007 all couldn't make it because of other commitments or last minute ill health. How amazing that we could have a face to face gathering with more than a couple of people!  That was unbelievable in 2010.

It was great to meet the people behind the photos and work out how we were all connected. We discovered that Fiona and Terence, the non library people in the gathering, had become involved via @csmramsden's daughter.  There were those of us there who reported that we were taught by @csmramsden's father in library school.  So now there is a hash tag on Twitter #ramsdengenerations! Unfortunately we were so interested in our face to face interactions that we forgot to take photos of the people.  But photos of the Fox Hotel were taken and posted on Flickr.

Fox Hotel, Collingwood

This probably sounds like a very personal little gathering of no interest to anyone else except a few Flickr geeks.  But I think it was a very significant gathering.  I joined Flickr as part of Thing 2 (I think - the number is the query not the process) in Helene Blowers' 23 Things when we did a Victoria wide roll out of it to all public libraries. And I am still there using it as an integral part of my life. A couple of others mentioned above did that Victorian 23 Things program too.  Many of us also started experimenting with a new thing called Twitter at that time and through it we made UK contacts and so the story goes on.  And we are still there enjoying our world wide networks.

All of the Melbourne people who are mentioned above have come together virtually and physically via various combinations of Twitter, Flickr and personal connections that can be traced back to several of us doing and embracing 23 Things as part of our lives.

So I say:  Yay for Helene Blowers!

#blog12daysxmas Post 5 #2014PAD

Cat purse for Xmas 365/361 #2013PAD, a photo by Hecuba's Story on Flickr.

For the last few years I have enjoyed the fun and the challenge of taking a photo every day and loading it on Flickr and then into a Photo a Day (PAD) group.  The groups I have belonged to were started by my library friend @sarahgb in Wales who administered the group for a few years. She bowed out of being admin this year so I took over the reins for #2013PAD. 

We have 67 members in the group and as of today these members had loaded 6,778 photos for 2013. Well, it looks like we won't hit the hoped 7,000 this year (unless lots of people in arrears get a move on and load photos up), but it is pretty good. In fact, it is a great achievement!! So well done, members of #2013PAD!

From those figures you can see that everyone has not loaded a photo every day.  Some barely got off the ground, others dip in and out adding photos when the pleasure takes them, and other diehards take a photo every day and load it up.

I am one of the last group, the diehards, and I have posted a photo each day since 1 January.  Other top contributors include Dyfnaint, Graham Dash, louiseholmquist, fiant, and Emmadukew.   I love doing PAD.  For myself, I can look back over the year and see my life at a glance through this set of photos. As we are a very widespread group covering a number of countries in the northern and southern hemispheres, I love seeing the different seasons showing through in the photos. Sometimes, particularly in Spring or Autumn, there will be a bit of overlap with the same flowers featuring in photos from places in very different seasons.  We post photos with all sorts of subjects. There are no rules relating to content.  Just post a photo you took on the day.

As a sign that the end of 2013 is fast approaching, this morning I set up the new group for 2014.  You can find the 2014 Photo a Day Challenge group here.  Why don't you join up and enjoy the pleasure of taking a photo a day and documenting your life in that way?  Or why not join up your organization?  An example of an organization who has been posting photos in 2013PAD is Civica.  It has been fun to get a different perspective from them.  This is a great way to document a year in the life of your library service.

Look forward to seeing you on Flickr #2014PAD!

#blog12daysxmas Post 2 Flickrup?

Boxing Day afternoon tea H365/360 #happy365

On the second day of Christmas my Flickr groups featured strongly again. Of course, I took photos and did everything I did with photos on the first day of Christmas.  But on the second day of Christmas there was more. @emerald_j (emeraldjoy on Flickr) cooked up the idea that we have a face to face gathering for Melbourne peeps to celebrate the completion of the Flickr 2013 PAD challenge.  What a great idea!

The 2013 PAD was a follow on from groups in previous years which my friend @sarahgb in Wales organized and it is true to say that originally there were only one and then two of us from the Antipodes in the first few groups. So how wonderful is it to be able in 2013 to have a face to face gathering of Melbourne members of 2013PAD! We won't be a big group but once upon a time we wouldn't have been a group at all.

After discussion today, we decided to extend the gathering to the #fp13 group as well as there is overlap and it was also an opportunity to meet some other Melbourne Flickr people with, let's face it, a bit of a library background.

So if you are a member of either of these groups and will be in Melbourne on the evening of 2 January, please come along and catch up with other members.  It doesn't matter if you will have completed 365 PAD photos or 156 fp13 photos, or if you have just dipped in and out during the year.  It would be great to see you.

The details of where and when we are meeting have been posted in the discussion pages of both groups on Flickr.  So check up there, or contact me by commenting below.  I am looking forward to catching up, whilst reflecting that I don't know what the Flickr equivalent to a tweetup is. 

#blog12daysxmas Post 1 Christmas Day technology

Christmas pudding H365/359 #happy365

Well here I am starting @blog12daysxmas late again.  It's Boxing Day in Melbourne and the first day of Christmas was yesterday.  So I am already in catch up mode. I realized today that my last blog post on this blog was for my not-fully-completed #blogjune challenge.  Oh well! I guess I just need a challenge to spur me along.

But technology and Web 2.0 were alive and well for me yesterday and show to me the importance of that 23 things program I did all those years ago. On Christmas Day, Twitter (actually my Echofon app) and Facebook and Flickr were all there with me at the beginning of the day as I greeted my online friends all over the world,  responded to their greetings and festive wishes, and looked at photos of their life at Christmas.

Xmas vegetables 365/359 #2013PAD

As with every day in 2013, on the first day of Christmas I posted photos on Flickr for my two daily 2013 photo challenges #2013PAD and Kathryn Greenhill's #happy365. I took the photos on my phone, uploaded them via my FlickStackr app, edited them via Aviary, edited them in the Flickr app, and duly added them to the appropriate groups.  Yes, I have done this for every day of 2013 up to day 359 which was Christmas Day, the first day of Christmas. 

I have illustrated this post with the photos I took for these two Flickr groups as a tangible illustration of the integral role technology plays in my life. It is very hard to remember a time when these tools were not part of my life.

Technology and Time-Keeping #blogjune Day 16

Wind-up Baby Ben clock 52/24/2 #fp13 #wind, a photo by Hecuba's Story on Flickr.

The theme for my Flickr Friday photos this week is "Wind".   One of the photos I took for this was of my old wind-up Baby Ben clock.  It no longer works as the spring is broken.  But I like to have it as a decorative piece and a reminder of my past.   

Taking the photo really led me to reflect on the impact technology has on my use of time-keeping devices.  Once I had a wind-up clock and a wind up watch that I religiously wound up every night. Now although I have a couple of (battery operated) watches which I wear occasionally as jewellery I really rely on my iPhone or other devices for timekeeping when I am out and about.  In the house I have the time flashing at me in every room from devices, appliances and my desktop PC.

QR in Edinburgh Gardens #blogjune Day 12

QR in Edinburgh Gardens, a photo by Hecuba's Story on Flickr.

I am constantly amazed at the places I find QR codes.  I found this one on a morning walk through Edinburgh Gardens in North Fitzroy.  I also love the Lort Smith Animal Hospital one that I often see on a bin in Darling Gardens, Clifton Hill.

When I was travelling in Greece, I snapped one on a tram stop and posted it to Flickr.  Next thing I knew I was being invited to join the Flickr QR codes in the wild group and post there.  Check it out if you are interested in the use of QR codes. 

A Reflection on #blogjune 2013 Post 22

Soooo tired 365/184 #2013PAD, a photo by Hecuba's Story on Flickr.

Well here I am nearly a week since the end of June finally reflecting on the failure that was my #blogjune.  But maybe with strict accuracy I should be fairer to myself and not say failure, but lack of complete success. Unlike the tired Xena above, I didn't spend June napping instead of blogjuning but here I am in July and for this blog, Hecuba's story, I only did eleven posts of the required 30 in June.  This was despite having mapped out and researched quite a few other posts including the two (or is it three?) posts/things I am behind with in #anz23mthings.

Oh dear!  Well maybe I just committed to more than I could achieve and should start thinking carefully about web 2.0 challenges I set myself. What are they and how am I going mid year?

I have two daily Flickr challenges (#2013PAD and #365happy) and two weekly Flickr challenges (#fp13 for both me and the Collingwood Historical Society). I am completely up to date in all four of them.  I should in all fairness admit here that another member of the Collingwood Historical Society helps with that Flickr #fp13 challenge. But still Big tick!

I signed up and committed to doing #anz23mthings and I was doing well until, well let's be frank about this, until I started doing #blogjune as well.  Or not keeping up with either of them.  However, I have been researching playing with apps and sites so it really isn't as bad as it looks. I will make a big effort and catch up with #anz23mthings by the end of next week.

 And #blogjune?  Well I committed to doing #blogjune for both this blog and for the Collingwood Historical Society blog. That meant 60 blogposts in the month of June.  I must have been mad.  By dint of a huge effort on 30 June (i.e. being tied to the computer for hours and doing 12 posts that day), I managed to complete #blogjune for the Collingwood Historical Society. Big tick! 

For this blog, I managed to complete eleven in June. This means that in June I competed a total of 41 blogposts.  So not so much failure as lack of complete success.  Earlier this morning I sat down to write this post as I was about to give up and say I had completed only eleven posts. But when I thought of the photos I had taken for posts and the drafts I had very loosely thought of, I flicked this post back into draft rather than publishing it and went back to review them.

Now hours later I am still sitting at my computer.  But I have published another ten #blogjune posts for better or for worse and I am feeling a lot better about #blogjune as this post will make post 22. I actually have scrappy notes about a few other posts too.  So maybe I will just try to finish the challenge even if I get it done by mid July.  And next year maybe I will think more carefully before I commit.

Flickr Victorian Public Library Buildings Group #blogjune Day 10

And continuing right on with the "I heart Flickr" theme and in the interests of getting up to date with #blogjune today, this post is about another Flickr group that I coordinate.  So if you are not interested in Victorian hotels for their history, architecture, drinks, meals or music (and I believe there are some librarians who aren't), why not give the Victorian Public Library Buildings Group a go?   Many of you librarians in Victoria must visit public libraries or at least go past them, and I am sure that all interstate librarians visit or at least notice libraries when you visit Victoria.

So next time you are in (or passing) a public library in Victoria take out your phone or camera and take a photo.  Then add it to the Flickr Victorian Public Library Buildings Group. And while you are at it, why don't you go back through your old photos and see what ones you had taken of Victorian public libraries and add them? We would love to have them added to this group.

Flickr Victorian Hotels Group #blogjune Day 9

Have I mentioned before that I really heart Flickr?  I think you all may have got the message.   One of the groups that I coordinate on Flickr is the Victorian Hotels group.  The focus of this is hotels in the State of Victoria - not hotels with Victorian (as in the Queen) architecture or history.  So if you are ever passing by a hotel in Victoria or inside one, why not take a shot and head over to Flickr to add it to the Victorian Hotels group?

If you have the Flickr app on your iPhone you can take the photo using the app, edit it and upload it  to the group.  Unfortunately last I heard you couldn't do that with the android app.  Hopefully Flickr will be mending that.   You can, of course, add the group later within Flickr itself or one of the third party Flickr apps that allow editing.

Friday Photos #fp13 #blogjune Day 6

As many of you know, in 2013 I am taking part in three Flickr challenges.  I really like the discipline it gives me in terms of deadlines and the new eye it gives me for everything around me. Well in the case of this challenge it gives me a new eye every week!  The Friday Photos group challenge grew out of one of the photo a day challenges and is coordinated by @sarahgb from Wales and @csmramsden from Melbourne.  It was originally library people from the UK and Australia but recently it has become a bit more international and has people who aren't from libraries!



The game plan is that every Friday we are given a theme and within the next week we need to take and post three photos on the theme. Themes this year have included socks, water, information, faces, buttons, frames, sounds rain and many others.  We have 103 members.

If you are interested come on over to Flickr and join in.  We have lots of fun and lots of engagement.  I am always amazed at the creativity of people when they come up with ideas for the themes.

#anz23mthings Week 2 I heart @Flickr

 

Well I guess the heading says it all!  I love snapping things either on my camera or my iPhone.  I take all sorts of things: leaves, skies, architecture, street art, cats (particularly my Xena), clouds, flowers, holidays. You can follow me on Instagram as Polyxena2 but don't expect much interaction from me. I joined Instagram but unlike Kim I didn't really get into it and I don't use it very much.  My fave is Flickr.

Like lots of other  things, I started using Flickr as part of the original 23 Things that I did in 2007.  And well, I guess as time has gone on it has become one of my favourite social media and cloud storage tools. I load my photos there almost daily (either directly or via the Flickr or other apps), I belong to many groups, and I participate in a number of challenges.  This year I am part of the Friday Photos group where we are given a weekly theme and post three photos by the following Friday. I take part in Kathryn Greenhill's Happy365 group and I administer the 2013 Photo a Day Group as well as the Victorian Public Library Buildings group and the Victorian Hotels group. I also participate in the general #FlickrFriday group which has a themed one photo a week focus.

Aside from my own account, Hecuba's Story, I manage the Collingwood Historical Society's Flickr account and face the weekly challenge of trying to find local photos which fit the Friday Photos theme.That involves lots of thinking out of left field, but so much fun. It is quite a different thing for an historical society to do but we find we are getting engagement and information enquiries and discussion there and engaging with people who are different from our face to face members. And it is a great way for us to document today which is, of course, tomorrow's history.

Specifically for this Week 2 task, I took a photo of my new British Museum umbrella with my iPhone Flickr app.  I cropped it, added an effects filter, added tags, a set, and groups and uploaded it to Flickr.  As part of the upload the photo was also fed out to my Twitter and Tumblr accounts. The Flickr app which was upgraded not so long ago is now very good - it had been awful.  So now I am happy to use it.

I also took a screen shot on my iPhone of my doing the uploading of the umbrella photo.  That was in my iPhone photos so I opened my Flickstackr app and used that to upload it to Flickr.  Flickstackr is my favourite Flickr app and I use it a lot to load and edit and comment on photos.  It has the full Aviary editing functionality and is a great little app.

To get both of these photos into this blogpost, I used the iPhone Blogger app to upload them as I was trying to focus on mobile apps, though I could have used other ways. Flickr and my iPhone provide me with such a range of versatile ways of getting my photos to the world as well as editing and storing them.  Yes, I heart Flickr.

#blog12daysxmas 2013 challenges

So 2012 is done and dusted. What technology challenges am I giving myself for 2013?  I have blogged elsewhere about my reading challenge targets - they might be p-books or they will often be e-books.  But what else?  Well, those of you who know me know that Flickr challenges are a constant in my life.

This year I have signed up for three specific Flickr challenges. The Flickr Friday Photo Challenge managed by my friends @ sarahgb in Wales and @csmramsden in Melbourne is a follow on from the 2012 challenge.  This is a themed photo challenge with three photos taken per week. I have enjoyed doing it in 2012 and it has been great to meet people all over who are doing this. Last year I undertook this challenge for the City of Boroondara Library Service and for Collingwood Historical Society in addition to my own personal commitment. This was quite a commitment but I loved it. Unfortunately the City of Boroondara Library Service has not continued this commitment but I will continue doing it for the Collingwood Historical Society along with colleagues in that group. If any of you are interested, please join us in the group.

My second group, Flickr 2013 PAD, is also a follow on from 2012 and from 2011 when we did Photo A Day. This is a group that @sarahgb managed but she has handed on the mantle to me manage this year! I hope I can meet the challenge! I have done a photo a day since 2011 and I must say it has become rather a way of life!  We have lots doing it this year so have a look and join us if you like.  This group started out amongst librarians in the UK with a couple of us from the antipodes but has broadened out a bit as time had gone by and now we are quite international.

My final Flickr challenge is a new one.  The Happy365 group established by @sirexkat asks us to post a photo a day about something that makes us feel happy.  There are a number of us doing both the 2013PAD and the Happy365 so there is some overlap.  But the Happy365 is an interesting one as it challenges us to take a happy photo. So far (in week one) it has been fascinating to see the scope of people's possibilities and to realize how many of those things make me happy too! Great kudos to Kathryn for coming up with this one!

#blog12daysxmas Day 9 videos from Flickr

 

I was very pleased to have finished my 366 photographs for the Flickr Photo a Day 2012 Challenge.  But as I stated a couple of posts ago I am very keen to create a video of the 366 photos like I did in 2012 with the late lamented Pummelvision.  So, rather than moaning about it any longer, yesterday I decided that I would explore possibilities.

After a bit of research I ended up with what seemed to be three contenders.The first was Animoto which I have used in the past in its free version which was going to be far too short for 366 images. Animoto in its free form was actually Thing Number 39 years ago and that is how I came across it.

There are also Plus and Pro paid versions and so I thought that that maybe the Plus version for $5 a month or $30 a year would be the goer.  I pottered around in the site for a while checking the functionality and made another freebie of my Loupe.com collages which I successfully uploaded to Youtube.  You can see it here.


Of course, then I looked into the fine print of the technical detail and discovered that the maximum number of images was 300!  Boo! That was not going to be very good for a year of 366 days (or even 365).

The second was Windows Live Movie Maker. I didn't get very far with this one, though I think fiddling with it seemed to change my Firefox settings and resulted in no video access. That is a whole other story.  The reason I didn't pursue it was that it only accesses photos on your PC or camera and not from other sites such as Flickr as I wanted. This may be a great tool but it is not what I want.

The third one was another paid site, Stupeflix. It also looked hopeful so I started making a video by loading up photos from Flickr. Although I could find no information anywhere on the site about the maximum number of images, my initial load stopped at 50 and although I was able to load more incrementally it could not deal with 366.

So does anyone have any other bright ideas?  Am I missing the obvious?  It seems to me that the solution is to do divide the year into two and do two videos using the Animoto Plus account.  At least my Flickr Friday Photos 2012 will only be a maximum of 159 photos!

#blog12daysxmas Day 8 2013 Photo a Day Challenge

2013 Photo a Day Challenge, a group on Flickr.

Just a reminder that the@Flickr 2013 Photo a Day Challenge starts
tomorrow 1 Jan! 

Follow link to join up and start posting!

#blog12daysxmas Day 5 Flickr Photo A Day Challenge

One of the things that I blogged about last year in the #blog12daysxmas challenge was the Flickr challenges that I was setting myself for the coming year, i.e. 2012. So how have I gone with them?  I signed myself up to contribute to two different challenges and in some cases was participating for more than one Flickr user.

The first challenge that I was part of was the 2012 Photo a Day Challenge that is administered by @sarahgb in the UK.  I participated in her 2011 PAD Challenge and was keen to do this one.  Of course, being a leap year it meant that I needed to do 366 photos this year.  Today I posted my 365th photo so I am nearly there! I have really loved doing this every day.  I have found that it really made to look at things around me quite differently and has also provided a good summary of the year 2012 for me to look back on.  Last year on @pollyalida's  suggestion, I made my 2011PAD photos into a Pummelvision video which I loaded on Youtube.  Here is it:



I would love to do the same for 2012 but unfortunately Pummelvision is no more so I will be looking for other options in the New Year.  So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

I certainly loved doing the Flickr PAD in 2011 and 2012.  So I am planning on doing it again in 2013.  Maybe some of my #blog12daysxmas colleagues would like to join up?  It is a great exercise.  My friend Sarah is bowing out this year after three years worth of PAD and has handed the mantle over to me to continue.  I have set up a Flickr 2013 Photo a Day Challenge at www.flickr.com/groups/2013pad/ so just head over there and join up for the fun.  I was amazed when I did a search how many photo a day groups there are on Flickr!  But this is my one:) It has my Loupe dove (again inspired by @pollyalida) as the avatar.

#blog12daysxmas Day 4 Loupe Collages

Season's greetings! 366/351, a photo by Hecuba's Story on Flickr.

Thanks to @pollyallida I had lots of fun in the lead up to Christmas playing around with Loupe Collages.    Polly did one of her Facebook friends for a Flickr Friday Photos 2012 theme of Friends and I quickly followed up for the next weeks theme of Christmas with a festive kitteh (see below)  taken from a number of photos on my Facebook page. And then, well I guess I played around a bit. I created the one above as my virtual Christmas card: it contains the avatars of all my friends on Facebook.

If you go to the website you will see how simple it is to create a collage.  Simply choose your photos: these can come from Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, your drive or a url.  Of course, I would really have liked Flickr as that is my main place for managing my photos.  Then you choose your shape - I tried a few different ones - and the final stage is to create the collage.  Once saved, you can share it on Facebook, Pnterest, Twitter or save it on your own drive.  I just created this Ducky one as I was blogging as a homage to Polly's Ducky.

There is also a free iPhone/iPad app, called Shape Collage,  which allows you to choose photos from the device or photostream only.  There is a more limited range of shapes here, and can again share it on the device or share to Facebook, Twitter, Email or Instagram.

Enjoy playing around with this!