River Murray Dying is a Flickr group with 51 members and over 350 photos.Their beautiful but heartbreaking photos can be viewed as a Slide Show. The introduction to the group states:

About River Murray Dying

We are hoping to show images which highlight the plight of the River Murray as it slowly dwindles and dies. We are hoping that by gathering the evidence we might have a tool to get something done, to get some meaningful action instead of just words, to reverse the current inaction, to alert those ignorant of the sad state which has been reached, to save our Murray. Sequential photos taken over time would be very useful to this cause but any images showing the downward spiral would be welcome. Hope you can help.

This group is well worth a look.

Our Flickr group, Reclaimed Water Network, on the other hand, still has only 2 members and only 11 photos. I know we are all sitting on more photos that we could be sharing. Finding the right photo for a presentation or lecture can be tedious, and then worrying about having the right to use it…

You can create a Flickr account using your Yahoo ID. A free Flickr account comes with some restrictions on the total number of photos and the possibilities for organising them (about 200 photos and five sets). A pro account, with no restrictions, costs about US$27 per year. Once you have your account, you can upload photos using

  • the Flickr Uploadr (available for both PC and Mac)
  • iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins
  • the Flickr web page
  • email
  • various free third-party desktop programs

You can edit photos using Picnik, organise them into sets, and if you have a pro account, collections. You can even plot the locations on a map.

For each of your photos and videos on Flickr you can set:

  • privacy level, which determines who can see your image
  • usage license, so your copyrights are protected
  • content type, flag your photos and videos as either photos and videos, artwork/illustrations, or screenshots
  • safety level, so other members only see images within their specified comfort zone

Then you can share them, by adding them to the Reclaimed Water Network group. You can explore the other groups on Flickr, make contacts with people with similar interests, keep in touch with people you know.

I love my Flickr account, and I am pretty sure Flickr would be a useful tool for the Researchers’ Network. In fact,it already has been, as we found our header photo on Flickr. If people preferred, it would be possible to start an account for the network, and allow members to upload photos to it. But having your own account gives you much more control over  access and copyright.