A year on www.flickr.com

Blijburg - lagoon, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Joined flickr.com on 16 July 2005, so we are a year on.
A great site, getting better all the time.

As much a note to myself here are some of the statistics:

5,493 photos loaded (an average of 15 a day!)
58,957 visits (an average of over 160 a day)
5 photos with more than 1,000 views
16 over 500
66 over 200
and 200th most viewed has been seen 116 times - and it is actually one of my favourites:



Most popular pics are mostly from tribal people in Africa, world cup related pics, notably English fans and Somaliland photos. It is clear that bare flesh and good looks sell... so I can quite understand why magazines always use these on their covers (or at least what THEY think is good looking).

Looking back, I am surprised to notice that so many of my photos seem to be of people. Maybe this is because people are innately interesting and they make great subjects. Also the techniques of digital photography, when you can take pictures without looking through the lens lends itself to people shots. Landscapes are always difficult to capture in terms of getting the depth of field. Buildings are OK, but I find them a little bit boring after a while

Anyway, I spent the afternoon on the beach, Blijburg-aan-zee.... a new beach here in Amsterdam around Ijburg, the new suburb they are building on what ten years ago was under water, as part of the Ijsselmeer. The new developments there are going up very quickly. Some are quite interesting, others depressingly boring - long lines of flats with dark-coloured bricks.

The beach is great though, shaped like a half-moon bay, the cooling wind coming off the lake, creating mini-waves. There are various wooden huts selling beer, and delicious food, one large one, draped out like an Ottoman palace. Nice latin-tinged music from the speakers, later a live band. It reminded me of the place in Byblos, Lebanon, where at the end of the day, all the beautiful (and rich!) young things would get together and drink cocktails and dance the evening away. Not that they will be dancing now, with Israeli shells coming oveer them and hitting places like Tripoli and Batroun just to the north... but more about that later. Back to Blijburg, I am very blij (happy) to have (finally) found it and look forward to returning there soon (maybe already this afternoon!)