by Maggie Ybarra
Daily Lobo
The University is offering student photographers a chance to showcase their work in an online art house.
UNM administrators used the popular Web site Flickr.com - an online community for sharing photos around the world - as the basis for kick-starting Flickr.unm.edu. The Web site allows members of the campus community to upload and share their photos. It was launched in the summer and is set up so students can easily create a Flickr account and join the UNM Flickr group, which has 81 members.
John Sumrow, a Web designer with University Communication and Marketing, said he tries to maintain a variety of photographs in the Flickr pool.
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"Flickr is huge," he said. "It's a great system. This pool is full of really cool people who love taking pictures, love hitting the button, love talking to other people to share their passion. That's actually what it's all
about - connecting people."
Student Aaron Gonzales said he has been putting his photos on the site since it began.
"I like that it's on the UNM home page and that it gives more exposure to my online photos," he said.
So far, Gonzales has about 30 photographs posted on the
Web site.
Sumrow said it was about time UNM had a Flickr pool for
students.
"We started thinking about this probably about six months ago," he said. "A couple of us were sitting around saying a lot of other colleges are doing Flickr pools, and we should do that."
The Web site is set up for students to easily create a Flickr account or join the UNM
Flickr group.
Alumnus Ben Roberts, who graduated in 2002, said he started his UNM Flickr account as soon as the Web site began.
"I initially got involved when John contacted me through another Albuquerque Flickr group we are both members of," Roberts said. "He told me he was putting together a UNM Flickr group to showcase UNM photos and asked me to join and contribute. I thought it was a great idea, a great way to give local photographers' work another venue for display. So I contributed photos, gave some feedback during the start-up phase of the site, and now the site is live, linked off the UNM home page."
Sumrow said the point of the Web site is to inspire students to learn more about photography or to experiment.
"A lot of guys and girls online swap recipes on how to take great images," he said. "It's all sharing. It's all network. It's all social. Hopefully, people will jump in. I mean, not online, but in reality when they see pictures of mountaineering or something they'll want to do."
There are 175 images sitting in the Flickr pool. Sumrow said he prefers to post photos that are UNM related "but with that extra oomph."
"Florida State has one, and it's got everything and the kitchen sink on there - athletic rah-rah stuff," he said. "But we're going for a clean, artistic kind
of bend."
Sumrow said students should feel encouraged to submit as many photographs as they like.
"Anything that they're attempting to put passion into is going to be a great image,"
he said.
Roberts said that the exposure his photographs have received on the site have garnished the attention of a couple of UNM departments that want to use his photos in
publications.
"So that's a good sign that people are looking at the photos quite a bit," he said.
Roberts said it's always the photographer's decision to let someone use their images for another purpose and that the UNM Flickr site protects the photographer's copyright.
"I'd encourage photographers of all levels to submit to the group," he said. "It's a great way to be involved in campus life, meet a few people and get your photos shown to the UNM community and the world at large."
