Just in time for the Olympic protests, Yahoo’s Flickr is
strapping on a new video lens. A site that has become a standard share space
for personal photos will now include subscriber videos too.

"We want to
be the eyes of the world - that's what's tattooed on our hearts. There's no
reason why that shouldn't include video."

-- Kakul Srivastava, general manager of Flickr

Awww, that’s
sweet! But let’s be honest here, this is about Yahoo trying desperately to
catch up to Google’s YouTube – heard of it? Trouble is, there doesn’t seem to
be as much freedom with the new set-up – the key word here being “free.”

Flickr videos will
be limited to 90 seconds as opposed to the 10 minutes maximum allowed on
YouTube. (Flickr subscribers can post an unlimited number of clips, with a 150
MB maximum size for any one clip.) Currently, only Flickr's Pro Account holders
are able to post videos for now though free users can view clips. Subscribers have
the option to make their videos public or private. One of the clear advantages
of the Flickr subscription – no ads.

The move
certainly reflects a sign of technological times as most digital cameras and
mobile phones can record photos and
video. Evidently, Flickr is aiming to maintain its unique art-as-hobby culture
and is not necessarily looking to mimic YouTube. Flickr folks tend to dig a little
deeper, asking one another about types of lenses and filters and perusing
photographs as they might in an art gallery.

Flickr
aims be the online place for your PG-rated family vacation home movie, or,
“authentic” videos, as they call them. In other words, keep your homemade porn
to yourself, bud. Same goes for pirated TV/movie clips. Arrrrr! Folks who want
to view commercial entertainment might be better off going to Yahoo Video, a
different beast entirely.

Meanwhile, the 92nd annual Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, letters,
drama and music were announced at Columbia
University this week. Adrees Latif,
Reuters, won for "his dramatic photograph of the Japanese videographer,
sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar,"
the Pulitzer Prize board said.

Some have argued that the more interesting shots might come from the late photographer's camera and it is certainly interesting to ponder, but we congratulate Adrees and Reuters on the honor.

I highly recommend you check out another Pulitzer winner this year in the category of photography. Preston Gannaway also won The Big P in Feature Photography for
"Remember Me," the story of cancer patient
Carolynne St. Pierre. As as she endured brutal
cancer treatments, she allowed Gannaway to photograph each painful step for one simple reason: so that her children would get to know
her better and remember her when she's gone.

I viewed this series in the middle of my busy workday and was deeply moved. There I was, crying at my keyboard, for a woman I'd never met and for the family that loved her so much. To invoke this sudden expected emotion in an objective stranger - this is the photography at its best.