I'm starting to feel at home here already! Going back to flickr, as I still do while I'm sorting things out there, feels like a visit to an alien planet. Discovered two more random faves on oldish photos last time I was there. Again from a newly signed up member with a twee coloured camera icon (yuk, the sort of thing you'd buy a 2 year-old!) but no pics at all, which is at least better than the porn... Yet another addition to the block list. It will be nice to leave all that behind me soon.
This is my third photo home on the net. I began back in 2004 on a rather clunky photoblogging site called fotopages. I made friends there and socialised with people from all over the world including one from Germany who I met up with when she visited London. We have now become close friends and often visit each other. I'm off to stay with her in Germany this summer.
She moved over to flickr before me and made friends via various comment groups that just seemed too much like hard work to me although she was always encouraging me to follow her. Eventually fotopages more or less died a death although my fotopage is probably still out there somewhere in the bowels of the Internet.
So I made the move to flickr in 2007. It seemed a bit alien at first but I was determined to avoid the flashy icons and post one comment x groups and gradually settled in making contact with various like-minded people and meeting up with some irl largely through the Guess Where London group that we're currently in the process of migrating (or duplicating - who knows what will happen to flickr) to ipernity here: www.ipernity.com/group/293059
I spent a lot of time building my photostream and keeping up with various contacts but thinking back, I never really felt comfortable on flickr; it just seemed the best thing to do at the time. Now, here on ipernity, I am really starting to feel settled, even though I've just arrived. The team have done a brilliant job in welcoming all of us refugees. I am making new connections as well as keeping up with flickr friends who are also making the move.
Although I feel sad about the demise of flickr, I am excited to have found such a new and welcoming space. I feel creative again!