One of several images that back in 2011 got me noticed by Getty Images via the app ‘Flickr’
Flickr and Why I Love It
I want to preface this by telling you how much I love Flickr, and how much it pains me to see it in it’s current state: confused and lost. Flickr is a website (and app) that allows a user to add images to a sequential photostream, organise via albums (previously called sets if you are a longstanding member), add titles, descriptions, keywords, tags and photo exif data and comments, all while displaying images in the best possible quality across mobile and desktop platforms easily to the entire world. It also functions as a nice backup, and allows sharing and embedding images in other places such as forums and other apps. It allows lots of other cool functions other apps don’t have, such as allowing private folders we can share with friends or family. Many members allow their photos to be viewed by anyone, forming a large collaborative database of categorized photos which are easily searchable via keywords, that should exist in full up until the present (more on this later). In short, Flickr is very useful all round and I still use it to this day.
I first jointed flicker in 2011 after I stopped messing about with my Father’s old Pentax ME Super film camera and bought a D700. Flickr back then, was a ways away from how it is now. Those were the days when I got noticed by Getty Images and started my journey in stock photography work, along with several other avenues and opportunities. I love the layout, the EXIF setup, the groups and the display format: photographs are correctly resized, pop out when clicked on, and we can add annotations. I still get a little burst of excitement when I feature on the front page of Explore! I have been priviledged to have been featured almost 70 times now! (Explore featuring is a big thing on flickr, the alogrithm there constantly scans for images that should reach flickr’s front page and be displayed to a vast worldwide audience. In short, being featured, makes one feel like Flickr Royality!). In short, Flickr is a photographer’s website / app. Created in 2004, it has went through many iterations, and it has changed ownership several times now. Many of the changes that have been made have really driven people away. The current owners are still seemingly constantly playing with the format and alongside other functional problems with the it’s design and implementation, doing disasterous things that keep once dedicated users from coming back to the fold.
So What Went Wrong?
Sadly, Flickr has had several falls from grace. Each time, it has felt to me like when the government or an employer tells a person that they have “streamlined” their pension for this, that or the other. Translation: the ‘workee’ will be working longer and getting less money, is the real takeaway message. ‘Yahoo!’ aquired Flickr in 2005 for around 22 Million USD. In December 2006, upload limits on free accounts were increased to 100 MB a month (from 20 MB) and were removed from Flickr Pro accounts, which originally had a 2 GB per month limit. In April 2008, Flickr began allowing paid subscribers to upload videos, limited to 90 seconds in length and 150 MB in size. On March 2, 2009, Flickr added the facility to upload and view HD videos, and began allowing free users to upload normal-resolution video. At the same time, the set limit for free accounts was lifted. In 2009, Flickr announced a partnership with Getty Images in which selected users could submit photographs for stock photography usage and receive payment. It then eventually evolved, giving photographers’ they thought viable, actual full-time contributer contracts with them and as mentioned, it is how I got started. I am still with Getty to this day.
In 2018 it all went sharply downhill when current owners ‘Smugmug’ (what kind of name is this, seriously - I digress) took over their premiership of the site. Flickr, was now seen as a dying App (Yahoo! did not wish to sustain ownership because of this, and apparently it was becoming costly to run with little to no upside as most flocked to more regular apps such as facebook and instagram), Smugmug began to put in place measures they thought would get people paying for pro memberships and using the app again. One of those changes that really alienated the faithful users at the time (myself included) was when they decided to limit all non pro accounts to 1,000 uploads, even if at that time a user had say, 10K worth of images on their account. (Previously, free accounts had 1 TB of storage which to most users at that time was essentially unlimited space). Too bad they said, and they gave a date of when it would physically delete the users’ images, gone forever. The initial deadline was February of that year, however they pushed it to March due to the outcry. They didn’t change course as many hoped. It caused me to physically delete my entire Flickr account with them. I’ll admit, done in a sort of “up yours” fashion at the time, however looking back I would have still done the same today. It was and is the most significant faux-pas Flickr management has ever made. If you recall, I touched on this at the start of this article by explaining Flickr’s importance as a historical record, essentially digital history for all types of photograph, from personal to archival.
Their logic on the face of it made sense to them at least; force people to pay up or they would be heavily restricted from every angle. The problem is, Flickr had a ton of loyal photographers’ who cherished the site, using it daily, and spending many hours on the forums, in the groups, and researching locations, guides and watching their friends shoot. It was a big thing. Many where there from the start, and suddenly they were gone. The problem is of course, that Flickr plain and simply always touted themselves as a place first and foremost to store images, and this change of direction really left a sour taste. Let’s consider what is going on now, as of 2025, because it’s gotten a whole lot worse in recent times.
Connecting Waters - One of my first decent landscape shots out of the D800 camera back in 2012, also noticed by Getty via Flickr
2025 Flickr
Now Flickr is almost unrecognisable compared to it’s inception. The 1,000 upload limit remains of course. But Smugmug went further. They are not content that a free user can only upload 1,000 images before they hit a wall, oh no. Now they have limited downloading of the full resolution file by anyone but a pro subscriber! This was an extremely handy function, and now it’s gone. (Consider that, Flickr has always touted itself as a backup service also, and now those pictures are held at ransom until the user pays? Is this business strategy working Smugmug?). There is now as of December, an annoying, neverending popup message the user has to click on to make it go away telling us the following:
“Your activity shows you're already engaged! Pro membership gives you unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, detailed analytics, priority support, and connects you with fellow photographers.
Join Pro today!” A button appears below this to upgrade to pro, with another saying “continue without supporting”.
“Continue without supporting” - that’s right Smugmug, make them feel like terrible people! That will get them on side. surely. You might say, okay, well just pay, or just click it away. The problem is, it literally comes up constantly, it’s not just a “once per session” popup. It is extremely annoying and uneccessary. Like a used car salesman telling a prospective buyer that four others are interested and that you’d better buy this little beauty now before it sells to someone else. Does this tactic work on anyone? Harrasing people into sales: I would imagine has a very low hit rate, except perhaps with gullible fools.
Workarounds
As mentioned, one change that really frustrated me was the lack of access to the full resolution file. This is handy to be able to send to friends, use for prints, instagram and other app sharing functions. They not only limit the user downlading the full size, the maximum resolution able to be downloaded is now ridiculously small and essentially worthless, somewhere in the region of 1 MB or less! The workaround is a pain, but doable. On any broswer, right mouse click over the photograph on flickr - click “inspect, or inspect element” then find the larger size. It won’t show the user the full resolution, but at least you’ll be able to access the 4MB file for a bit more resolution (remember, that’s the version that shows on higher resolution monitors, so there is no way they can stop this function at least. I do wonder if Smugmug will nuke flickr with one final stupid change and make the display format ultra low resolution, just to bloke me from doing this workaround?). I use Flickr to post to other apps regularly, so this workaround what I do, or on a phone, I can screenshot the image, then crop it. It gives a higher resolution than downloading their measly low resolution file they limit access too. The second workaround that is possible to get around the 1,000 upload thing. Just make another account. It’s simple: I have three, proof ultimately that these restrictions are an act of self harm to themselves.
My Message to Flickr
I understand the catalyst behind some of these changes, and perhaps even some of the intentions. Many I feel though, as just mean spirited, and at the coal face of it, will never, and were never, gonig to bring anyone back to using the app. Annoying people into paying, limiting things that were long since free and consistently restricting that down further and further, year by year, along with badgering constant popups in their faces and badly placed ads will never been a strategy to do so. I understand Flickr has to survive and remain viable, but there are better ways to do so.
Despite all this, I simply cannot get over my love for the website. You might tell myself and other users who are waivering or long lost, “why not just shut up and pay up”. I hear you. You have your point, to a degree. However, consider that Instagram, Facebook, and the likes do not charge to play. Because of this simple fact, the majority are simply not going to pay for this type of thing in 2025. Flickr is inherently different to these other two of course. Flickr is a pure photography app, wheras Instagram for example, is overrun with adds and plenty of non-photographers and ‘influencers’ / attention seekers that it is more akin to a popularity contest. In short, it has a much greater pull, and is always going to generate higher ad revenue than somewhere like Flickr will ever be able to attain. This is indeed the quandary that Flickr has now. The best strategy is to fund it entirely with advertising and consider how places like Meta bring in the revenue. This model ensures noone has to pay to play. The quandary and hubris Smugmug have here, is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be the numbers required in order to make that viable. That said, I am convinced the answer to Flickr’s woes is not to beg, annoy, disappoint and restrict the last few users who actually value it in some way though, is it?
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Steve
Flat Calm. Gourock, West Scotland in 2012. An over 6 minute long exposure which helped get me noticed via Flickr for Getty Images