Helloooooo Flickr

85153864,  Sarah Hall Photography/Flickr

For the past several years, whenever I asked our customers where they went for inspiration the first word that tripped from their lips was, and still is, Flickr. It’s cool, it’s unique, it’s unexpected and funny. It’s wild and sad and beautiful and you never know what seven days of “Interesting” is going to reveal. And now it’s on gettyimages.com. Whoo hoo!

The creative and photo research teams at Getty Images from all over the world (I’m talking China, Brazil, the US, UK and beyond) have spent the last several months exploring and celebrating all Flickr has to offer in order to bring the most exciting and relevant content to gettyimages.com. It has been an absolute pleasure.

So, here’s the thing. There are three BILLION pictures on Flickr and we are literally at the tip of “ye olde iceberg.” We’re starting small and then we’ll continue our journey and add thousands of new pictures a month while asking more and more Flickr members to participate. This deserves another whoo hoo!

We thought we’d try to answer a few questions here at the outset. But really, we want to hear from you. My colleagues and I will be checking back here often, ready to answer your questions and read all of your wonderful comments.

I am a Flickr member. How can I get invited to participate in the collection?

Our creative teams look through Flickr in a number of ways, but mostly through tags and regular keyword searches. Keep in mind the more descriptive you are with your pictures, the easier they are for us to find. So attach all of the good juju like locations or a descriptive caption. Also, we’re only looking at public images – so make sure any images you’d like considered are set as public. And finally, check the “yes” box on this page and we’ll be sure to find you.

How do you go about selecting imagery from Flickr?

The creative teams have spent thousands of hours with amazing photographers and photography. Our global photo research teams have spent thousands of hours listening to customer needs. We’ve combined those core strengths to select the brightest and most relevant content. And, at the end of the day, we hope to hear directly from you. So tell us exactly what you need right here on this blog by leaving a comment.

How can I let you know I’d like to license an image on Flickr that is not on Getty Images?

In the next few months we intend to add a new feature that will allow you to tag images that you are interested in licensing. We’ll keep you posted.

So that’s it! Let us know what you think! And a final whoo hoo for sign off!

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