Looking At Photographs

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Both my cousin and I are Autistic and I've noticed that we both really love looking at photos. For him, it is photos of trains and airplanes, and for me, it tends to be old photographs of my family, dogs, cats, old and abandoned buildings, and celebrities I like. I constantly am on Flickr looking at stuff on my phone. Am I the only one or is this a common thing for those on the spectrum?

I don't see you looking at Flickr as being particularly autistic.

I actually see this sort of "behavior" as being more "neurotypical" than "autistic."

Why would looking at photos be an autistic trait?

I have poor reading comprehension so i dislike reading and cant understand books, what i do enjoy is looking at picture books and other photos. This is more of a sign of high visual and spatial processing than autism.

I'm sorry guys. I'm not very good at knowing what is Autistic and what isn't. I'm still learning

If you're talking about obsessively viewing photographs of a very narrow field of interest, then this could be considered autistic.

I do this.

I collect thousands of photos of the same subject and view them daily, like a ritual.

Yes! It's the same for me.

When I'm depressed I turn to my photos for comfort.
It's almost like a visual stim.

No need to apologise.
You're working things out in your own way.
I'm sure no one here knows what I'm talking about half the time because I forget that other people can't see my thoughts.

Could be a special interest. I collect super hi resolution images. I spend hour upon hour,days,weeks,collecting,researching,finding the highest res,I then spend hours just looking at the detail in the images such as individual follicles and pot marks and eye lashes and shapes in the eyes etc. I get a really pleasurable feeling from analysing hi res details in photos. I can't do this with photos that have no detail or low res. The world seems to go away and time disappears. If your just looking at photos casually then it's normal if it is kind of obsessive,gets in the way of normal living then it may be a special interest.

I love to look at picture books like coffee table books and magazines with photos of gardens, decorated rooms, houses and art books, I love looking at all kinds of art from graffiti to classical. I have colorful pictures of places and animals all over my walls to look at.
At Christmas time I googel "Christmas houses" and hundreds of pictures of decorated houses pop up to look at. I go to art museums when I get the chance and go to open studio art shows and I walk along railroad tracks to look at the graffiti.
I'm kind of crazy like that. I crave interesting things to look at.

Looking at photos in general wouldn't be an autistic trait, maybe looking at photos on one specific thing could be. Personally i could spend hours on end looking at photos of classic muscle cars.