My 20,000th Photo Uploaded to Flickr

The photo above marks my 20,000th upload to Flickr. My first photo uploaded to Flickr was uploaded on January 2, 2005, four years ago. Over the past four years, sharing photos online has redefined how I view my own work. I have found inspiration from other photographers daily and I’ve met some truly, truly amazing artists, photographers and people participating in this new world of social photography along the way.

Thanks to everyone who over the last four years has stopped by my photos and left a note, a comment, a fave — touch from one human being to another. Your testimonials, your emails, your blog comments, spending a few hours walking around San Francisco or Oakland or Berkeley or Hollywood or Sacramento or Las Vegas or Portland or Seattle or New York or New Orleans or anyplace else our paths have crossed, in real life or online have held great meaning for me. I’ve appreciated the feedback, I’ve appreciated the friendship, I’ve appreciated the support. It’s made me a better photographer. It’s made me a better person.

20,000 uploads to Flickr represents 2% of a goal that I’ve come to define as part of this process of learning about myself and my photography.

I’d like to publish one million photographs online before I die.

This means that I’m planning on shooting, processing, and publishing photographs every single day for the rest of my life. It means that I have to live a long time and be careful to maintain a pace that makes this likely based on human life expectancy. It means living my life with a camera constantly by my side. Permanently attached to my being. Framing my world hour by hour as I move about this planet. Every day a new opportunity to find and present new beauty to the entire connected world.

I’m optimistic about what the future holds. A phrase I’ve repeated often is that the best photographs in the world have yet to be taken. This phrase isn’t meant to discount the amazing work of so many great photographers of yesteryear that have paved the way for the world of photography today. Rather, it’s meant in a spirit of hope. Hope that tomorrow will bring still more opportunities to capture the human condition and the beauty around us. Hope in an evolutionary creative vision that lives in all of us and that is constantly finding new ways to express things artistically. Hope and a belief that in technological advances are born even greater ways to help us achieve our artistic passions.

And on the continuing ride that the next 40 years or so may have in store for me, I’m excited about how much of my life will overlap with the people that I continue to have the good fortune to run across in this world. As much as my photography allows me to constantly interact with people in the offline world, friends and strangers alike, as big a part of that overlap, at least for me, comes from this great big world of online photo sharing that we all share with such generosity.