Can you believe it? We're standing in the middle of a dead tree!

Inspiration is often is quick-time. Everybody has their method of coming to inspiration differently. Whether it be anything from raiding Google for thoughts, emailing a friend, venting to the Significant Other, inspiration comes from many different pools. For myself, it's climbing a mountain. I've gotten this funny idea in my head that one must climb a mountain to gain wisdom or for some great matter or thing to happen. Climbing to Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park was my pool of inspiration.

Inspired, I turned to Flickr after shortly arriving home. I've explored Flickr through one friend's phenomenal photos. Other times I've explored Flickr through Google in my attempts to locate a picture with a specific theme. Flickr, indirectly, was always there for me. It was only natural that I turned to Flickr to explore the pictures I took of my hike up to Vernal Falls as well as other explorations of the park. So, I began with setting up an account. To my great discovery, Flickr is now through Yahoo. How convenient (yes, of course I have a yahoo address)! Dashing off the address and moving on was easy, but I was a little deterred when I was informed through the page that I had to tinker with my cookies before accessing the rest of Flickr. Cookies?! Yes, we all know that "cookies" aren't those sugary goods that we all love to munch on, but instead are often referred to in this day and age as something all together technical.

Some of the key words were confusing on the cookie page, but with some quick guess-work the previous cookies were deleted and I moved forth in my exploration of developing my personal web-space. The uploading of pictures was easily found, and I began and finished uploading my little treasures.

Now for explorations! I probably would not have taken advantage of the various functions available if it were not for dear Will Richardson's own exploration of Flickr. He points specifically to Flickr Magazine Cover and Flickr Color Picker to name a few but I think his reference to The Great Flickr Tools Collection is a great place to start with Flickr fiddling in general. For neebies like me, I would recommend checking out the photoshop-styled options in Flickr Service. Many of the applications in Flickr Service are third party applications. In other words, those who use Flickr like it and donate their skills to enhancing the user experience. Now that's called community!

Flickr is a great photo-sharing site, but it isn't the only one. Some people may want to tie all of their online experience together in a neat package. One such application that accomplishes this is Google. There is gmail, Google reader and than there is Picasa Web Albums. Getting started with Picasa is something of a walk in the park. The initial structure that is found through the Google account is simple and easy to navigate. Photos used in profile pictures from Blogger are stored in the Picasa Web Album. For those wanting to work offline and later upload there is Picasa 3 (mac). Flickr is fabulous, yet it does come with an eventual price tag. Users are limited to how much they can upload onto their accounts. One must wave away this limitation with dollar signs. Picasa, on the other hand is free and it connects throughout all Google applications. That counts as a fat check mark in my web exploration book.

But to theorize, photo-sharing websites are dime a dozen. What makes it uniquely you is the personal exploration and discovery of whether photo-sharing website A or B meets your requirements. Does it allow for flexibility? Are the functions accessible? Will there be limitations that will stunt your creative juices? Some people don't think about such matters until it comes to recommending to family, friends or co-workers. Others are more aware. There are lists of photo-sharing websites for those wanting to explore their options. For those with less time on their hands, reviews are a great place to start. For those in professional areas, such as teachers, photo-sharing through the Internet is a great opportunity to teach and be taught. Since many students are already utilizing such websites as Flickr, Photobucket, or Webshots to name a few, some teachers are having to catch up with their students in this field of interest. But how can teachers challenge students already in the know-how of this web application? Critical thinking is perhaps the key. Teachers can begin a class session with asking students to go and explore the pros and cons of various photo-sharing websites or which sites they would share with friends or family. The possibilities for classroom involvement with photo-sharing websites is endless.

Creating a personal space for myself on the web is ever expanding, and photo-sharing is definitely one avenue of deep web diving. Stay tuned for next time as I view through my submarine telescope the thrilling possibilities of Youtube.