Instructions for using Flickr -- If you are not familiar with Flickr, it is a pretty easy site to use. Membership is free (you don't even need to post any photos to become a member) and becoming a member will give you additional options that you won't see as a non-member visitor. There are several ways to navigate through the pages and photos in this account.

When you visit any page of snapshots (called a "photostream"), you'll see displayed small "thumbnail" representations of each photo. My pages are arranged in chronological order, left to right and downwards. In some photostreams some of the photos may be grouped into Sets, which are then presented in the right margin of each page. Choosing to open and view a set is another way to navigate but within a smaller subset of thumbnails. The list of available pages in the full photostream is found at the bottom of each page of thumbnails. In a thumbnail view, you are given only a preview of the text caption for each picture. You must click on a thumbnail to enlarge it and to read the complete caption. Some captions contain text links to other information or other pictures. Also, some pictures have embedded notes that highlight a detail of the image. Some of those notes can also contain links to another related picture elsewhere. On the page of the enlarged photo, to the right of the main photo you will see a navigational box for the "photostream." There are two smaller thumbnails there that you click on to go forward or backward in the album of photos. Clicking on the left thumbnail moves you to the next enlarged photo. Some prefer to stay at this view to navigate through the album of photos.

Extra enlargements, Comments, Notes -- Just above the frame of each enlarged photo, at the upper left corner, is an icon for "All sizes." If you click on this, an even larger size of the photo is displayed. You'll have to click on "Back to the Flickr photo page" to return to the photo's main page. Viewers can leave text comments about each of the photos, but this can only be done as a Flickr member (it's free). If any of my photos have a comment, you can click on the commenting Flickr member's name to link over to his/her photos on Flickr. This is how Flickr has become a "social network." Some of the photos might be geo-tagged with a "Map" link that will show you on a Google map where it was shot. To keep connection time brief, I have kept my photo files small and only adequate for detailed viewing on the screen. But they are not large enough, even in the largest size, for good sized, quality prints. But if any of them interest you enough that you may want to have good prints made at a photo service, just let me know the title of that photo and I'll send you the full-sized file.

Videos -- A photostream may contain video clips. These will have a Play arrow on their thumbnails. I have also marked them as videos in the caption text. Here's the best way to view the videos – 1) Click to play the video, but then immediately pause the playing. 2) Wait for the video to fully load into your computer's memory; when the "time thermometer" is fully gray. 3) Click to play again from the beginning.

As a registered Flickr user with access to this account, you have additional options for using the photos. These options are added to the icons above the frame of the larger image page for each photo. One of these is to "Add a Note." With this option, you can highlight a portion of the picture and caption it with your own text. Also as a Flickr member, you can tag any photo as one of your "Faves" (a favorite that you can link to directly from your private account)