The next time you take a photo of what appears to be an ordinary insect, it may pay to look more closely at the image… it could be you’ve discovered a new insect species, as was the case for Malaysian photographer Hock Ping Guek, who recently posted photos of such a creature to photo-sharing service Flickr:

Shaun Winterton, a researcher with the California State Collection of Arthropods at the California Department of Food & Agriculture, first found evidence of the species when he randomly stumbled upon a set of photos posted by Hock Ping Guek, a Malaysian photographer. Winterton recognized the insect as a potentially new species, but needed to collect field specimen in order to formally describe it.

Stumbling upon an unknown species – by the way – is far from uncommon, as thousands of new insects are identified every year.

Eric Fischer has produced a series of maps showing where Flickr and Picasa photos are taken in major cities around the world. Colour distinguishes photographers modes of travel, whether they were on foot, bike, or in a vehicle, and darker lines indicate areas where higher numbers of pictures were taken.

The above map of Sydney shows photos being taken where you would most expect them, in the downtown and harbour areas, as well as the beaches to the north (Palm beach and surrounds) and the east of the city (Bondi, Bronte, Coogee, etc).

Photo sharing services such as Flickr, and the proliferation of digital cameras, have simultaneously increased the numbers of would-be professional photographers vastly, while undermining the profession at the same time.

Because Flickr is so prominent, it’ll get most of the blame for the destruction of yet another venerable profession. But in fact the rot had set in long before the site launched in February 2004. The main culprit was the idiot-proof digital camera, which enabled almost anyone to take a decent photograph, or at any rate one that was accurately exposed, in focus and sharp – and to delete it and try again if it hadn’t turned out right.

Amazing, three dimensional images of cities have been created using thousands of photos posted to photo-sharing site Flickr.

Sameer Agarwal’s team was able to create a simulation of Rome using 150,000 images harvested from photo-sharing website Flickr, and build a virtual model within a day.

Dan Benjamin has modified Flickr backup script FlickrTouchr so that it can download your original, full-size, Flickr photos to one location.

This will especially suit people – such as myself – whose Flickr collections have been built up from different computers and locations over time, and who accordingly don’t have copies of these photos stored in one central location.

“You’re” produces a portrait of your “virtual web identity” compiled – apparently – from information garnered from social networking and photo sharing sites that you belong to.

The White House Flickr set.

Voyeurism at the highest level elected office… the more you see, the more you want to see.

Chances are you may never want to post any more of your photographs to photo sharing websites after reading this story.

A man goes to an REM concert. The conditions on the ticket banned taking photographs, but Steve Miller and his wife, who were conveniently seated in the middle of the front row in the Royal Albert Hall in March, noticed that everyone around them was taking photographs and the staff weren’t stopping them. So they took some, too – about a dozen nice, bright, clear, good-quality concert photographs. Miller put them up on Flickr, as you do, and thought little more about it. Then one day in mid-May Alison Clarke, another Flickr user, contacted him to let him know that his photographs were up for sale on eBay.