Good points; it has a void-ish feel to it, but it’s interesting how many people are on it and how many people use it according to these answers. When I just re-signed up, it feels a bit like it’s been left alone by its owners.

Thank you everyone for all these helpful answers! I’m reading through each one and I really appreciate them. It looks like Flickr is still good

amazing photos!

thank you!

I enjoy taking photos as a hobby, but pay the bills by writing and editing professionally. When I worked at a newspaper, I would always talk with the photo editors after deadline for advice on taking pictures and about how they learned photography. Writing about cameras and photography for myself (in a blog nobody reads) has helped me take better pictures, because it pushes me to think more deliberately about what I’m doing. I can see how writing could help anyone, especially if they ever want to write a book about taking better pictures or get into photojournalism or write a book that presents their artwork. For writing in general, I highly recommend the books “Simple & Direct” (Barzun) and “On Writing Well” (Zinsser). In both professions, photography and writing, self editing is one of the most difficult, yet most important, skills to learn.

I have a related question: How common is it for images to get swiped? I am a hobbyist and generally feel like if someone stole an image I took, I could just take another one another day. If an image is really meaningful to me, I don’t usually post it online.