Flickr Places - How to get the best photographs

One of the mega-tools of Flickr is Flickr Places. The tool that allows you to put your pictures on the map - literally.

How does it work
Anyone uploading to Flickr has the opportunity to Geotag their image. Geotagging means putting your picture on the map. This is useful for your record keeping and interesting for your visitors.

More powerful, geotagged pictures can then be viewed and found using Flickr Places. Put simply, you are able to search for a location and find images at that geographical location.

How to use FlickrPlaces?

Next time you are planning a trip, look the place up on Flickr. This will let you instantly see the most interesting and most recent photos tagged at that location.

Armed with this information, some projects that you could indulge in include:

1. Photo-copy

Find a picture that you love and copy it! I don't mean steal it, I mean try to recreate the image through your own lens. You have a map that will lead you right up to the spot where the original capture was taken. Make yourself aware of the light conditions, the shadows, the angle used. This is a really excellent way to learn more about your camera and how other people take pictures.

The photograph below was taken in London's South Bank. If you like it, find it and photo-copy it!.

2. Find fascinating subjects

When you know where you are visiting, see if you can ferret out the real eye-catching locations. Hunt them down and grab your own pictures.

For example, the shot below is of a fascinating sculpture in Kingston, England. Just imagine how many ways there are to photograph a view like this.

3. Be specific

One of the great functions within FlickrPlaces is that you can search for tags within a location. In other words, you can find particular types of picture. For example, try searching for New York, US. Once in New York search for "Happy" to see some joyous scenes, or "Money" to get some intriguing photographic ideas.

4. What's Interesting

Searching within a location, you can choose to see what has been rated most interesting by Flickr. Ask yourself if you can see reasons why the top pictures were considered interesting by Flickr. What's great about them and what's not?

5. Local area

There's no better location than your own backyard to practice taking pictures. Have a look at how others have interpreted your town, village or city. What have you missed? If you had looked harder what would you have seen?

Below was the top search for interestingness for Sidmouth, UK:

Flickr Places can be a fascinating tool. Let me know if you use it in any other ways.

Visit me on Flickr at Doug88888.

Other Flickr articles
How to Increase your Flickr views
Flickr Enhancements - Best Tools Available
Flickr Fave's Game