A recent sunset picture

Sunset 12/18/05
Originally uploaded by gwilmore.

I took this picture one week before Christmas, and hesitated to upload it to Flickr because I didn't think it was that good. But I uploaded it anyway, and it was selected for the "Interestingness" feature, which suggests I did much better with it than I had thought. It has sort of grown on me as well, and I have ended up really liking it after all.

"Interestingness," which is a difficult word to say, is determined by the powers-that-be on Flickr, based largely on the number of comments and "faves" an image receives, plus a few other factors I am not aware of. It is sort of the equivalent of making Law Review, except that one's career does not depend on making Interestingness, and there will always be daily opportunities to make the grade for as long as one is a member of Flickr. Each day 500 photos are selected for the honor, among more than 300,000 images uploaded each week. Since July, I know of at least 8 of my Flickr photos that have been so designated, and it occurs to me now that just about all of them have been posted to this blog at one time or another. (They include the photos of the saguaro cactus in sihlouette and the IKEA Christmas ornaments, plus one of the images of my fountain pen set against a handwritten passage from Dante. And, of course, at least a couple of the sunsets I love so well.)