I have three groups on Flickr: Superosity, The Superness of Superosity and Blur Will Save the World. The first one, Superosity, I set up a few years back because I was fed up of those groups on Flickr that force you to award a shiny graphic to 5 other photographs for the one you have posted to the group. I understand that “we all love comments” but a shiny GIF is not a comment. All people do is click on the photo hit C on the keyboard and then alt+V and the gif/graphic is pasted in the comment box and they move and repeat the sequence until they reach the quota. Some of these groups even have sweepers that police your activity in the group and threaten to ban you from the groups if you do not adhere to their rules. I feel this goes against the idea of sharing and supporting, which Flickr is all about.
Superosity
Superosity was set up to allow people to post photographs to a group without this awful threat hanging over them. To allow people to share their images, appreciate each other’s work and learn from each other. The group has grown to a stage where we now have almost 2500 members and over 67000 photographs. My good Flickr friend Randy and I are the group admins and from time to time we have a featured artist section showcasing some of the best contributors. The most recent was a fellow Irishman Dermot whose photographs of Ireland are spectacular. The one before that was another favourite of mine – Olga – who has the most wonderful, artistic images.
I intend to continue to showcase individual photographers there and using the blog to broaden the reach of the group I am going to select my 12 favourite images from the group and post them here each week.
A lot of people have asked me “what the hell is Superosity? Where did you get the name?” “It’s not a real word, you know?” Well, words fascinate me. Super is one of my favourites. I love the sound of it and I love its connotations. But there is no noun. It just has an adjective form. So, I added the suffix osity and formed superosity. Another example would be fabulosity. We need these words. And what better title for a group of the best images from Superosity than Superness! And as for it not being a real word…. of course it is a real word!
Superosity in all you do.
Thanks for reading.