Validation

Validation is Not Just for Parking

Austin Kleon's excellent book Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative makes a point that when you put something out into the world, you have no control over how people will react to it. Therefore, you should not care. Yet, he goes on to acknowledge that when people say nice things about your work it is a good feeling.

This past weekend I got to experience that feeling after I posted this photograph, of some pencils I recently purchased, to Flickr.

"Colorful" by Cliff Hutson

The number of "favorites", and comments it received was truly heartening. It seemed that every hour my iPod pinged showing that there had been activity on the photo. I had never experienced that before, and I have been on Flickr since October 2005. 

The thing of it is, that while I like this photo or otherwise not have put it on Flickr, I do not consider it one of my best. But, then Flickr's users have long amazed me. My most viewed photographs, of late, have been of apples; the fruit, not the computer; instead of my wildflower or food photography. However, the most viewed to date has this shot of basil, which I really love.

"Basil" by Cliff Hutson

By the way, here is the link to my photostream, just in case you want to take a look at my oeuvre.