What makes a photo "interesting"?

21/365 (and SPT 21/01/10): Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Originally uploaded by Way Ahead Photography

Recently I've been trying to explore "Explored" on Flickr, and find out what it is that makes photos interesting enough to get so many views.

At first my rather cynical observations pointed to the fact that many of the photos contained pretty people, many of whom didn't have many or even any clothes on...

Whilst I'm not a shy fellow, I didn't think this would be condusive to making people want to view my photos. More likely in fact, it would scare them away...

Then the other day I saw a quote that said "If the world is cold, make it your business to start fires". Inspirational. And also a great idea for a photo. Out came the zippo lighter, and the result was a photo that has so far ranked #15 at its highest, and had over 500 views in just 2 days!

So - I've not been at this very long, but my tips for getting a photo on Explored are:

1) make sure you view other people's photos add them as favourites and leave POSITIVE comments. If you've got nothing nice to say, say nothing (as my dad says!)

2) add contacts and keep in touch. Flickr is social networking, just like Facebook or Myspace - you make relationships online with like-minded photography lovers. I've already made some great friends on Flickr.

3) Join groups - groups are themed towards certain types of photography, and there are hundreds of them - you are bound to find one that you enjoy submitting to.

4) Regularly submit photos. Consider doing a project like a photo a week to start with (I started with self-portrait Thursday for example) - and perhaps move on to something more ambitious (like the 365 project I'm doing for 2010 - a self portrait every day!)

5) Seek inspiration - look at other photos on flickr, but also listen to music and note the lyrics, read books, watch TV, play with your kids, go for walks. In other words - live your life. Don't become obsessed so much with photography that you end up doing nothing worth photographing.

This photo of Salvadore Dali is the sort of thing I aspire to. It's just incredible - the amount of work that's gone into this moment, and the way it captures the personality of the subject as well. Makes my meagre laptop-burning efforts look like the cheap publicity stunt they really are.