I’ve often wondered how photos are selected for Flickr Explore. The images featured there are consistently striking and often inspire me to try new things in my own photography.
In a 2020 blog post, Flickr explains that Explore showcases a rotating collection of about 500 photos each day, chosen by an algorithm. The key factor in getting selected isn’t the number of followers you have, or whether you’re a Pro member. What matters most is authentic, organic engagement — the number of comments, faves, and views a photo receives shortly after being posted.
In other words, Flickr is looking for photos that resonate with the community, not just those from popular accounts.
If you’re curious, you can browse the latest selection on Flickr Explore.
Constantine “Costa” Manos was an American photographer best known for his vivid images of Boston and Greece. A longtime member of Magnum Photos, he was born in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of Greek immigrants.
In 2002, I took one of his street photography workshops in Maine. His critiques were sharp, honest, and always insightful. To this day, I often find myself wondering, What would Manos say about this photograph? The experience was both humbling and transformative.
What impressed me most was his approach to color. His photographs are bold and crisp, alive with saturated hues and deliberate composition. He taught me to see color in a completely new way. At the time, I had never encountered photographs quite like his.
In the preface to his now out-of-print 1995 book, American Color, Manos wrote:
My favorite pictures have always been complex ones which ask questions and pose problems, but leave the answers and solutions to the viewer. These are images with a long and evolving life, in which the photograph may transcend the subject and become the subject. Central to the strength of these images is photography’s most precious and unique quality, believability: that the moment preserved on a piece of paper is true and unaltered, that it really happened and will never happen again.
The photographs in American Color are uncaptioned — and they don’t need captions. They invite reflection. They remind me that powerful images can be found close to home, and that beauty often emerges from the ordinary.
“[H]is ability to capture the poetry of everyday life with unmatched sensitivity and a keen eye for light and color has left an indelible mark on the history of photography.”
Emmanuel Nataf writing on PetaPixel discussing his hit rate on the Leica Q3 compared with the Canon R5:
Going back to my “hit rate,” I simply can’t get anywhere near my R5. Part of it is due to the ergonomics of the Q3: a typical Leica without joystick to move the focus and poorly placed dials (the worst one being for exposure, placed on the outer part of the body and hard to reach with your thumb). With the temperatures dropping in the past few weeks, I used the Q3 with gloves and missed countless street shots by pushing the Play button instead of the arrows, definitely killing my shots. You may wonder why I’m not using subject tracking: because switching between subjects rapidly with the Q3’s buttons is completely unreliable.
The second reason for the low hit rate is the autofocus: average in poor lighting conditions and terrible in motion. With the Q3, I’ve had to stop shooting while walking. I have to stop, compose my image and shoot when the right subject comes into the frame — a much less spontaneous experience than what I’m used to.
Lastly, the camera is painfully slow to wake up. It should be on within a few milliseconds, but it takes the Q3 a second or two to start… far too long when trying to capture an instant.
I too own both a Canon R5 and a Leica Q3. The R5 is my main camera. I love it but it is big and heavy compared to the Q3. The Q3 is small, a pleasure to hold and the image quality is great, maybe even a little better than the R5.
I agree that the Q3 is slow to start. But I just leave it on and then it starts pretty fast. Sure it drains the battery but the batteries aren’t big or heavy. It’s easy to carry extra batteries.
I adjust exposure using the camera dial and find that works well for me. The camera can be adjusted almost infinitely. You just have to experiment and see what works for you.
I agree that the R5’s autofocus is better than the Q3 but find that I can shoot on the fly with the Q3. I feel I’ve gotten some nice street photos with the Q3. The eye detection on the Q3 works very well.
I made the photos in this post with the Q3 while on a trip to Japan in 2023.
In my opinion, when it comes to small, light weight full-frame cameras, Leica has the market all to itself. Would I love to see more competition in this category? Sure. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
I am happy to have the Q3 in my bag along with the Canon R5.
Update: April, 2024: On a recent trip to Europe my Q3 malfunctioned. The SD card would not click in the slot. After returning home, I took the camera back to the Leica Store in Washington DC. They returned the camera to Leica Repair in New Jersey. On April 30, 2024 I received the following email message:
4/30 Your equipment has been inspected by our technician. Your repair has been processed and placed in queue. No action is required.
Error description
strong traces of use adjust/replace printed circuit SD card slot faulty
I don’t yet know how long the repair will take. I miss the camera. I really like it. I will continue to update.
Update: May 21, 2024:
Dear Leica Customer,
During the repair of your Leica product, the technician found that a part required to fully repair your equipment to Leica standards is currently out of stock.
Our colleagues and worldwide suppliers are working together to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. However, this will most likely delay the completion of the repair.
We apologize for the inconvenience and sincerely appreciate your patience. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Care at 201-995-0051 ext. 9930 or email repair@leicacamerausa.com
Sincerely,
Your Leica Team
Leica Camera USA INC. Customer Care
I am thinking of buying a Leica M11-P but this experience with the Q3 gives me pause. Still one Leica does not feel like it’s enough for me.
Update: May 24, 2024
I called Leica Repair today to see how long the repair will take. They answered the phone right away and explained the part I need (the SD card holder) must be manufactured and shipped from Germany. The wait will probably be a couple of months. They offered me a Q3 loaner for the duration of the repair, which sounds great to me. They will send me the loaner next week. When my camera is repaired they will notify me. I will then return the loaner and they will then ship my camera to me. I am glad I called.
I added that I’m thinking about buying an M11-P and asked how long repairs generally take. The reply was 60 days – and longer if the camera has to go back to Germany. Analogue repairs take much longer – nine months or longer.
I guess Leica is a small company and this is the price of admission.
Update: May 29, 2024
My Q3 loaner arrived today. Once I held the camera in my hands, I realized just how much I missed it. Luckily, I saved my profile settings on my Mac so I only had to transfer them to an SD card and load them into my loaner.
Update: August 7, 2024
Leica notified me a few days ago that my Q3 has been repaired. Leica sent me a prepaid shipping label and I returned the Q3 loaner. Today, my Q3 arrived well-packaged and working just fine. The entire process took about 100 days. With the loaner, I am happy with Leica service.
Jim Hill is a Chicago photographer worth getting to know. He became fascinated by Chicago’s nighttime alleys and back streets during the pandemic:
I submerged myself in studies of how artificial lights penetrate the darkness of an urban environment. That darkness provided me comfort and cover from the events going on around me. The artificial lights transformed what is bland and ugly in the daylight into a beautiful hidden world, which is visible to those willing to risk the unknown, the shadows.
During the pandemic, fear and death seemed to permeate everything. Roaming forgotten places in the darkness to capture the hope of the light allowed me to confront the panic around me and gave me the strength to carry on. Ultimately, my work is about confronting fear and finding the beauty, which can emerge from the unknown, the darkness.
You can follow Jim Hill’s thought provoking photographs on Flickr and Instagram.
I made this photograph of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 2019. This was only possible because of the beautiful lights on the span. The lights have been on the bridge since 2013 when a public art installation called “The Bay Lights” was activated on the bridge.
The installation was designed by artist Leo Villareal and consists of 25,000 LED lights. This beautiful display stretches 1.8 miles across 300 cables on the western span of the Bay Bridge. Sadly, after ten years the display is worn out and and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, will go dark on March 5, 2023. However, efforts are underway to raise $11 million to keep “Bay Lights” shining on the Bay Bridge.
The Neon Museum in Las Vegas features signs from old casinos and other businesses displayed outdoors on a 2.27 acre campus. The Neon Museum has an outdoor exhibition space known as the Neon Boneyard. Boneyard is traditionally the name for an area where items no longer in use are stored.
Efforts to establish a neon sign museum date to the late 1980s, but stalled due to a lack of resources. On September 18, 1996, the Las Vegas City Council voted to fund such a project, to be known as the Neon Museum. The organization started out by re-installing old signage in downtown Las Vegas, to attract more visitors to the area.
Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) had manufactured many neon signs in the city, and the company had a storage site for old signs which would eventually become part of the Neon Museum collection. In 2000, as YESCO prepared to close its storage lot, the city provided the museum with land to start its own. Tours of the new site, known as the Neon Boneyard, began in 2001, by appointment only.
The lobby of the former La Concha Motel, located on the Las Vegas Strip, was donated to the museum and moved there in 2006, eventually becoming its visitor center. Construction to convert the lobby began in May 2011, and the museum officially opened to the general public on October 27, 2012, eliminating the appointment system.
Each of the more than 250 signs in the Neon Museum’s collection offers a unique story about the personalities who created it, what inspired it, where and when it was made, and the role it played in Las Vegas’ distinctive history.
Neon Museum – David Enzel, 2024
The Museum has announced plans for relocation and expansion in downtown Las Vegas’ Art District. The plan is to nearly triple the size of its current location. Currently, only 35 percent of the museum’s collection is visible to the public.
The Neon Museum is located at 770 Las Vegas Blvd. N, Las Vegas NV, 89101. You can buy tickets here.
Alta is located at 70 degrees north, far above the Arctic Circle. Alta is considered the northernmost city in the world with a population surpassing 10,000. The 9.81-square-kilometre (2,420-acre) town has a population (2023) of 15,931. At this latitude, nature is in total control.
Alta is a good place to see the Northern Lights due the region’s relatively stable climate and minimal light pollution, particularly when heading out of town into the surrounding wilderness. The Aurora has been known to be seen here for up to 200 nights a year.
Alta is a center of transportation in Finnmark county. The town has port facilities along Altafjorden, just alongside Alta Airport in Elvebakken. The airport has direct flights to Oslo and certain other big cities in Norway like Tromsø. The European route E6 highway also runs through the town and the European route E45 has its northern terminus in the town. The main industries present in Alta include a concrete product factory; several wood mills and sawmills; and dairy, horticulture trade, and maritime services.
“Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment,” is an important presentation of 130 works including a rare reunion of many of the paintings first featured in that now-legendary Société Anonyme exhibition 150 years ago, which is recognized as the event that gave birth to French Impressionism. On April 15, 1874, the first impressionist exhibition opened in Paris. Hungry for independence, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne decided to free themselves from the rules by holding their own exhibition, outside official channels: impressionism was born.
You can see paintings by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro and meet their lesser-known contemporaries. See the art norms they were rebelling against and learn what political and social shifts sparked their new approach to art.
The show is on view until January 19, 2025 at the National Gallery of Art. This exhibition is not ticketed. You may need to join a line on busier days. Weekends tend to be most crowded.
