What?

The flickratio website is a data visualisation tool.  The data it processes is retrieved by the user, just like in any regular search engine, by entering a keyword.  Using the Flickr API it then returns up to 500 images, matched by relevance.

The way it orders those 500 images is more interesting: instead of ordering the results by relevance or another traditional criteria, it plots where those images would sit side-by-side, according their aspect ratios.  So, ‘letterbox’ shaped images sit on the far-left, panning through the Golden Ratio, 16:9 widescreen, landscape 4:3 until we reach square photographs in the middle.  Images to the right of centre are the portrait ratios, become increasingly tall until finally the narrowest vertical formats on the far right.

flickratio homepage, 2012

Why?

Social media allows us to do experiments which were previously near-impossible.  In this case we can take a sample of 500 people from across the English-speaking world (assuming we use an English keyword) and observe how they create media – in particular how they interact with aspect ratios.  We can see their decisions and ask questions about what led to them.  For example:

• Do people tend to pick similar aspect ratios when photographing similar subjects?
• How many or how few of the images uploaded to flickr have been cropped?  And how does that change according to different subjects?
• When people crop images, do they produce ratios close to those adopted outside the world of image-capture?
• Which ratios are popular at the moment?  Are the square images a product of Instagram and Lomography?  Is the iPad helping to preserve the 4:3 format used old televisions?
• Is there a relationship between the different aspect ratios we use in modern life?  Various ratios were made ‘standard’ over the years because it was felt they were aesthetically pleasing.  Given the mathematical root of ‘ratio-aesthetics’, can we see a pattern?

filckratio visualisation (using keyword: "example"), 2012

Is that it?

No, the code for flickratio is still under development. It currently works in Firefox, Chrome and Safari - but not Internet Explorer. There's also a new feature planned which is will enable you to 'preview' images by pointing your mouse cursor at the corresponding plot-line, like in this screenshot:

filckratio beta visualisation (using keyword: "aeroplane"), 2012