Find Some Time

This Last month's posts were almost entirely about music. Time to switch it up a bit, and what better way to do that than with a few of my favorite sites for daily "finds". Today we'll cover four sites, each focused on a different realm of "found" content. You'll want to have a few minutes to get the full effect of each.

Sorry I Missed Your Party
This blog trolls Flickr for photos tagged "party" and posts some of the more provocative ones. Occasionally there's video, but it's usually a Flickr photo - which often links to an entire set of party photos that probably shouldn't have been made public. I recommend checking this site daily, as it never disappoints.

Photoshop Disasters
There are a few sites like this out there, but this one posts the most frequently and, usually, has just the right balance of snarky and savvy. If this site proves anything, it's that having a copy of PhotoShop does not make you an art director, or even teach you anything about composition. You'll learn to spot the marks of an amateur yourself after just a few pages of this site.

The Fail Blog
Evidence of failure is what this blog is all about. The nature of the "fail" varies, and sometimes it's a little hit or miss. But, in the same spirit of Photoshop Disasters and Sorry I Missed Your Party, this blog rarely fails to entertain with frequent updates that help you laugh at others' misfortune (usually the result of their own ineptitude).

FFFFOUND!
Considerably less hilarity than the previous links, but more about inspiring graphic design and photography which the sites' contributors find around the Internet (a lot from the Behance network, as it turns out). It's a bit like a visual tappas menu, with a slew of new tastes for your eyes to sample each day. Maybe that was a bad analogy, but take a gander anyway.

Of course, these and many others are always here for your perusal. Just check the link roll to the right for new additions each time you visit.

More Photo Credits

Time for another shameless self-promotional post in which I continue to imply my fascination with and fondness for the Creative Commons.

Just discovered that I'm credited, but not properly linked-to, for this photo I took of Ennio Morricone performing at United Nations Headquarters* . Any ideas what language this is? The ".sk" domain is the Slovakia registrar, not that I can read a word of it. I'm guessing they got to my photo via this re-posting of it on the Wikimedia Commons.



And then I spotted this German site linking to a photo I took of Casa dos Bicos (House of Pointed Stones). I imagine they found my photo via this Wikipedia page about secular Renaissance architecture in Lisbon. Incidentally, we were informed by locals that the building's diamond-shaped stone protrusions were originally tipped with actual diamonds. There are more detailed pics of it in my Flickr set from the Lisbon trip.



* [see My Trip To United Nations HQ]

Holy Schmap, Photo Credits!

I had no idea what Schmap was until I learned that some of my Creative Commons-licensed photography is being used in Schmap's Prague and London listings.

First, I received an email about a photo I took at Prague's Hotel Josef:



Then I got another email, regarding a photo of the unassuming front of the Maharishi store in London (it's easy to miss, tucked away on Floral Street):



What's so cool to me about all this: it's practically effortless. Post your photos to Flickr, use a Creative Commons license that permits sharing with attribution, and you could have photo credits that used to take a lot more work to achieve. That's assuming you take photos that people want to use.

What's funny to me about all this: these are both relatively high-end locations - the type of place I explore when traveling on business, but not the kind of place I typically patronize on my own dime. I'm more of a low- to no-brow league of consumer in most respects.

That said, Hotel Josef was a great place to stay near the old town square of Prague. Especially when your employer is paying for it. I should also admit that I did convince myself to splurge on a very expensive, limited-edition sweatshirt (which I am afraid to wear very often) at Maharishi - who may be best known for Sno-Pants and the Encyclopedia of Disruptive Pattern Material (which is, incidentally, one of my favorite reference works).