Photochaining (Canon)

This is the kind of photochaining that doesn’t require you to run around picking up and dropping off cheap memory cards

I ran into it on the Canon website, so obviously that’s why I’m calling it Photochaining (Canon).

It’s an interesting concept; an element (they call it a TAG) of your photo is selected to inspire a connection with someone else’s photo. An element of that photo (a different TAG) inspires yet another, and another, and another…

The way that Canon explains it, the photographer selects the tag. It seems a little more interesting to me to have the next person in line select the tag from your photo, but there are advantages either way.

Of course, it does not really require you to take a picture — this can be done just as easily with a web browser, or even just a hard drive full of photos (of kitty or child or online casino USA) all ready to go. As long as you have something that works.

Canon is so helpful, they’ve even got a little intro movie about their version of photochaining. It’s somewhat cute, and slightly helpful, but I don’t know that you really need all that much of an introduction to get up to speed. Plus, the video doesn’t seem to work all that well, but maybe it’s just my old Mac acting up…though it seems to handle online slots juts fine.

I’m also a little fuzzy about who gets to decide which submitted photo ‘wins’…but whatever the case, when that happens, the photographer responsible gets to be ‘owner’ of the new chain. The tag that the photographer has added to their photo then becomes the inspiration for the following round.

On the Canon site, three kinds of chains are specified: “Hero Chains” (the main project, which apparently updates every three weeks), “public chains” (anyone can pretty much do anything they like), and “private chains” (invite-only versions).