Many of the photographs on Flickr are images of the photographers themselves and of the photographers’ families and friends.
These are often accompanied by comments which give further details of family lives, friendships and collegial relationships.
The co-existance of the private/public space so often associated with online groups,is illustrated really clearly on the Flickr site and some of the shots I have seen are really intimate or of really important family moments - weddings, births even.
Meta photography is very popular and some people put deliberately provocative photos of themselves online. TT has a lovely post on this topic here.
It is as if in some spaces on theInternet there is a very strong sense of affinity, of trust and of defiance of all the stranger danger and discourses around the abuse of digital affordances by pornographers.
I had noticed when I was looking at Wiccan teens that in say 2002 - 2003 there were a great number of teens putting photos of themselves on thier webpages. Yet now this has massively decreased, presumably because of increased awareness of the danger discourses I referred to above.
I don’t know why, therefore there is this diffrence on the Flickr site. Maybe the ‘danger’ factor has fallen into obeyance since the stronger discourses are abbout the value of the photograph and the value of the affinity space itself. Maybe because of the ubiquity of digital cameras, digital photos etc that people feel less threatened by what can happen. The Flickr community maybe values the digital image so highly they cannot see the fear factor anymore?
People seem to want to offer a visual narrative of parts of theirlives, seeing themselves online, presenting a particular identity, and telling people in their comments, how to read the pictures.
Is there too much trust on this site?