The deadline for deletions of photos from free Flickr accounts is early February1, so Iāve requested the backup of my account2.
The two āAccount Dataā files are 13MB and 5MB each, and are filled with photo_#########.json files ā one for each photo.
The photo and video zip files vary in size from ~300MB to ~1GB. I figure thatās about ~23GB of photos, total.
My intent is to self-host these photos. Ideally the photos themselves will be have āpermanentā addresses on IPFS ā but Iāll still want to display them, and ideally with the original Flickr metadata. This will involve an IPFS to web gateway so I can just include the images directly. The folks from Textile already have a bunch of IPFS tools specifically for photos that Iāll be looking into3. Plus Cloudflare is running an IPFS gateway that may come in useful.
Seeing as the metadata has individual JSON files, I figured Iād take advantage of the Jekyll _data folder feature: any JSON files placed in that special folder are transformed into a special site.data.path.to.file variable.
I made a folder _data/flickr and can put the photo JSON files in there, and then loop through site.data.flickr to access them all.
For now, Iām just going to experiment with dropping a couple of JSON files in there, and manually uploading the related original photos to the Jekyll site as well. From my old Nokia N80 (and Shozu4!) the files are ~1.6MB, and from my Canon S5, ~5MB.
You can view the Flickr page to see the output. Not very exciting, but Iāll pull some more photos, perhaps some with lots of comments, and see where I get to.
Among many other issues around dealing with ~14 years of photos, Jekyll doesnāt (natively) support paginating data files. This obviously isnāt a final solution in any way.
For now, Iām backing up the Flickr zip archives in my Google Drive account, and will be writing more about what I see as an ideal path to getting these photos permanently into Web3, plus a Web2 front end.
Get in touch if youāre interested in this as well!
Hereās the very simple code for my Flickr page:
{% for photo_hash in site.data.flickr %}
{% comment %}
<!--
* Loops through all the photos_nnnnnn.json files in the _data/flickr folder
* Each is turned into an object "photo"
* The image original is hardcoded to be in the images/flickr folder
* BUG: Geo seems to be very off?
* BUG: license is "null" -- but on Flickr it's clearly CC
* TO DO:
** Tags
** Comments
** Groups
** Albums
-->
{% endcomment %}
{% assign photo = photo_hash[1] %}
{% if photo.privacy == "public" %}
<div class="{{ include.type | default: "list" }}__item">
<article class="archive__item" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/CreativeWork">
<h2>{{ photo.name }}</h2>
<img src="/images/flickr/{{ photo.original | split: '/' | last }}" style="padding-top: 20px" />
<p class="archive__item-title" itemprop="description">
{{ photo.description | remove: "<p>" | remove: "</p>" }}{% if photo.geo %} @ <span class="place"><a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=#map=14/{{ photo.geo.latitude | divided_by: 1000000.00 }}/{{ photo.geo.longitude | divided_by: 1000000.00 }}">OpenStreetMap</a></span>{% endif %}
</p>
<p class="page__date"><strong><i class="fas fa-fw fa-calendar-alt" aria-hidden="true"></i>Photo Taken: </strong> <time datetime="{{ photo.date_taken | date_to_xmlschema }}">{{ photo.date_taken | date: "%B %d, %Y" }}</time></p>
</article>
</div>
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
And hereās an example photo JSON file. The original photo page this metadata is related to is still on Flickr here. Yes, that is a ton of EXIF data!
{
"id": "2634391576",
"name": "Killarney Lake",
"description": "\n - Camera phone upload powered by <a href=\"http://www.shozu.com/?utm_source=upload&utm_medium=graphic&utm_campaign=upload_graphic/\" target=\"_newwindow\">ShoZu</a>",
"count_views": "53",
"count_faves": "0",
"count_comments": "0",
"date_taken": "2008-07-01 13:04:18",
"count_tags": "1",
"count_notes": "0",
"date_imported": "2008-07-03 09:48:30",
"photopage": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/boris/2634391576/",
"original": "http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3008/2634391576_6ab6f1017f_o.jpg",
"license": null,
"geo": {
"latitude": "49696401",
"longitude": "-123159753",
"accuracy": "15"
},
"exif": {
"IFD0:Orientation": {
"full": "IFD0:Orientation",
"label": "Orientation",
"value": "Horizontal (normal)",
"raw_value": "Horizontal (normal)"
},
"IFD0:XResolution": {
"full": "IFD0:XResolution",
"label": "X-Resolution",
"value": "300 dpi",
"raw_value": "300"
},
"IFD0:YResolution": {
"full": "IFD0:YResolution",
"label": "Y-Resolution",
"value": "300 dpi",
"raw_value": "300"
},
"IFD0:YCbCrPositioning": {
"full": "IFD0:YCbCrPositioning",
"label": "YCbCr Positioning",
"value": "Centered",
"raw_value": "Centered"
},
"ExifIFD:ExposureTime": {
"full": "ExifIFD:ExposureTime",
"label": "Exposure",
"value": "0.005 sec (1/200)",
"raw_value": "1/200"
},
"ExifIFD:FNumber": {
"full": "ExifIFD:FNumber",
"label": "Aperture",
"value": "f/3.5",
"raw_value": "3.5"
},
"ExifIFD:ISO": {
"full": "ExifIFD:ISO",
"label": "ISO Speed",
"value": "20",
"raw_value": "20"
},
"ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal": {
"full": "ExifIFD:DateTimeOriginal",
"label": "Date and Time (Original)",
"value": "2008:07:01 13:04:18",
"raw_value": "2008:07:01 13:04:18"
},
"ExifIFD:CreateDate": {
"full": "ExifIFD:CreateDate",
"label": "Date and Time (Digitized)",
"value": "2008:07:01 13:04:18",
"raw_value": "2008:07:01 13:04:18"
},
"ExifIFD:LightSource": {
"full": "ExifIFD:LightSource",
"label": "Light Source",
"value": "Unknown",
"raw_value": "Unknown"
},
"ExifIFD:Flash": {
"full": "ExifIFD:Flash",
"label": "Flash",
"value": "No Flash",
"raw_value": "No Flash"
},
"ExifIFD:FocalLength": {
"full": "ExifIFD:FocalLength",
"label": "Focal Length",
"value": "4.7 mm",
"raw_value": "4.7 mm"
},
"ExifIFD:ColorSpace": {
"full": "ExifIFD:ColorSpace",
"label": "Color Space",
"value": "sRGB",
"raw_value": "sRGB"
},
"ExifIFD:CustomRendered": {
"full": "ExifIFD:CustomRendered",
"label": "Custom Rendered",
"value": "Normal",
"raw_value": "Normal"
},
"ExifIFD:ExposureMode": {
"full": "ExifIFD:ExposureMode",
"label": "Exposure Mode",
"value": "Auto",
"raw_value": "Auto"
},
"ExifIFD:WhiteBalance": {
"full": "ExifIFD:WhiteBalance",
"label": "White Balance",
"value": "Auto",
"raw_value": "Auto"
},
"ExifIFD:DigitalZoomRatio": {
"full": "ExifIFD:DigitalZoomRatio",
"label": "Digital Zoom Ratio",
"value": "1",
"raw_value": "1"
},
"ExifIFD:SceneCaptureType": {
"full": "ExifIFD:SceneCaptureType",
"label": "Scene Capture Type",
"value": "Standard",
"raw_value": "Standard"
},
"ExifIFD:GainControl": {
"full": "ExifIFD:GainControl",
"label": "Gain Control",
"value": "None",
"raw_value": "None"
},
"IFD1:Compression": {
"full": "IFD1:Compression",
"label": "Compression",
"value": "JPEG (old-style)",
"raw_value": "JPEG (old-style)"
}
},
"groups": [
],
"albums": [
],
"tags": [
{
"tag": "ShoZu",
"user": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/boris/",
"date_create": "2008-07-03 09:48:30"
}
],
"people": [
],
"notes": [
],
"privacy": "public",
"comment_permissions": "any flickr member",
"tagging_permissions": "people you follow",
"safety": "safe",
"comments": [
]
}
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There are a number of important Flickr dates. Theoretically, I will have all my photos over the 1,000 limit deleted. Except those that are CC-licensed, and since Iāve always licensed them all CC, maybe they will never be deleted? Early February is going to be an interesting ride! ā©
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Iām not mad or upset at SmugMug, the new owners of Flickr. My last uploads to Flickr were from 2 years ago, and Iāve been experimenting with other solutions since 2012, as evidenced by my write up of The Flickr Question. ā©
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I tweeted at the folks from Textile, who pointed me at their custom metadata. Iāll be dropping into their Slack to talk more about this. ā©
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Shozu was an auto photo uploader for early smartphones that Roland and I and many other Nokia phone geeks used. ā©