project365 Day 20 Makes Flickr Explore

Until this morning, I’m somewhat ashamed to say, I didn’t really know what Flickr “Explore” was.

I’ve since learned that “Explore” is Flickr’s daily collection of the best 500 shots submitted by the site’s estimated 32+ million active members judged by an “interestingness” algorithm which draws on a combination of factors such as WHO views, WHO comments and WHO favourites a photo. Here I was thinking it was simply based on how many favourites and comments your images receive, but it seems it’s more important that you have influential people looking at, and liking your shots. Interesting.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the right people seemed to be paying attention to the above photo after I released it as the Day 20 candidate for my year-long photography project. It’s a 2 second exposure of the underground Skytrain tunnel on Vancouver’s “Canada Line” that, in all honesty, was just a nicely executed fluke. As of right now (typing this out), my shot is at #80 of 500 on the Explore list for January 21, 2011, thanks to some 1,100 views, 38 comments and 78 favourites.

You can view my full collection of “project365″ images on my personal blog masey.com.au, and on Flickr.

Lastly, if you’re keen on checking out Flickr’s best of the best “Explore” photos for yourself each day, I highly recommend the site FLUIDR. It’s awesome!