My 2012 in pictures …. and numbers

Another year’s photo-a-day project completed – with a bonus extra picture as 2012 was a leap year. A roller coaster year, with personal family sadness, but curiously I didn’t put down the camera, and find it strangely comforting to look back now and see what I chose to record on days when I can’t really remember doing anything atall. We also passed another of life’s milestones as after 20 years in a tiny Victorian terrace, we moved house. We’re still in Rochester, but came forward a century in time, as we bought a brand new house. That gave lots of opportunities to take photos to record aspects of the move, but also a new walk to the station and lots of different things to notice.

On with the statistics: Most popular and/or “interesting”

By a long way, it was the Govcamp T-shirt: 462 – also no. 4 in the all time views list, no. 150 in what flickr describes as “most interesting”.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt…..

I agree its not that interesting a photo – more one for the record – but its position makes it even harder to try and understand the flickr interestingness algorithm. This photo has same number of comments as others which appear much higher – must be something to do with popularity over time too? (still behind last years top photo, which continues to be popular – ‘ripples’ has now reached 728 views)
Others high on the list were Pelican: 373 (also no. 8 all time views, no. 50 ‘interesting’), Owl mugs: 302 and Tube lights: 278
2012 diary photos had over 100 views (at 31 Dec 2012) – 31

To update other figures in the style of last years blog post (comparing with previous years in square brackets):

Number of diary images which appear in my top 20 all time most viewed: 4 [last year it was also 4, 2010: 2]

Number of diary images which appear in the top 20 all time ‘most interesting’: 4 [last year: 9, year before: 6]

Total views of photo diary images during 2012: 25,671 [21,111 in 2011, and 8,680 in 2010]
Average views of each image: 70 [58 and 24]
Total views of all published photos during 2012: 67,320 [2011: 49,791 and 22,577 in 2010]

Categories include:
Event/date specific: 46 [about the same, 54 and 41, although my definitions of this category are non scientific!]
Local photos (Kent) = 66 [up on last years 48, but still fewer than the 95 taken in 2010]
London: 105 – bolstered by 46 taken in St James Park [up on last years 86, which included 28 in the Park, in turn up on 76 taken in 2010]

Travel related: 24 – this year I didn’t include all nights away from home, as we spent a lot of time in Gloucestershire. [55 in 2011, 43 in 2010 (these totals include all day trips and weekends away from home)]

Owl related: 20 [14 in 2011, 11 in 2010]

More libraries: 10 [4 and 7]

Fewer sunrises: 8 [just down from 9 in 2011 and 13 in 2010]

The natural world continued to feature strongly:
flora: 74 [huge growth over 49 in 2011 and 43 in 2010]
while fauna also increased: 47 [up from 41 in 2011 and 17 in 2010]

And the St James Park pelicans continue to feature – one of which was mentioned above as capturing people’s attention.

What it is to be a star!

Less transport overall:
fewer trains: 4 [14 and 8], fewer boats: 4 [5 and 6], fewer cars: 3 [5 and 0],
planes: 2 [0 and 5] and other transport: 3 [8 and 2]

Food and drink, about the same: 28 [23 and 12]

Still not doing that well with people: 20 – although there were a couple of portraits [24 and 18]

I’ve replied to some people who asked if I was planning to continue in 2013 with yes, and added the explanation that it is a bit of an addiction. While this is true, its also an education – especially as this year I was given a digital SLR, so continuing the photo a day habit is good opportunity to practise. The flickr albums also provide a nice diary snapshot of the year, and mean I can compare the changing of the seasons, when flowers/leaves appear and disappear, and also recall with precision when I did certain things – helpful evidence in occasional resolving of arguments!

Here’s to 2013 – I look forward to seeing how the people I feel I have got to know via flickr see and record their year.

PS – As an example of the wonderful serendipity of social media, just before I was about to publish this, I followed the link tweeted by @russellphoto : http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/meditations_on_photographs_a_car_on_fire_at_the_mall_by_jmc/ – and besides the neat twist that he shares my initials, I also share many of his thoughts and can relate them to why I take photographs. I would add though, that I’m always surprised by just how many of the pictures that I would consider ephemeral do continue to be viewed – perhaps that the librarian in me though, who can’t just publish, I always try to geotag, describe, label and otherwise make sure stuff is findable!

 

Another year, another 365 photo project

Following my lengthy blog post at the end of my first years photo a day project, thought I’d look back on 2011 and (as I’m still fairly intrigued by stats) look at how this years project differed – or followed similar lines.

First difference, I joined 3 different flickr photo a day groups – first: Photo a day challenge 2011, was the smallest, but the one I enjoyed most, as just like 2010, it meant I could almost get to know most of the group members through their photos, and share their years. This time, 2 people I knew also took part and I enjoyed seeing how Ann’s and Sharon‘s years unfolded – both of them experiencing many more life milestones than I did! The other 2 groups were the massive Project 365, which I dipped into occasionally, and the One pic a day 4 ever (again, small, as the qualification is that you have to have completed at east one 365 project). This latter group included one member from the 2010 group, and another who took some very intriguing photos, and blogged about the techniques

Flickr continues to confirm my main theory about social media – it helps you find people like you, whether you have a quirky or niche interest, or share the same passions as many.

Back to my project – aims were the same as last year really, record what happened, no particular plan beyond making sure I always had a camera with me and taking the photo when I thought about it, rather than miss an opportunity. One thing I mentioned last year as being bad at, is photos of people, and while this year is slightly better – 24 in total [up from 18] contain people, many of these are crowds, or performers (especially in costume, thanks to Rochester’s many festivals), and I just have 2 famous faces, 2 of colleagues, and 4 containing me (although none of those really recognisable – either in reflection, shadow or detail!) Other interests remained constant – scenery, the natural world, owls, libraries and a scattering of steam trains feature. I have continued to experiment with macro, tried to do more abstracts (9), and looking at the set as a whole, it struck me how many featured circles (15).

On to update the fairly random statistics I reported last year (with the previous year figures in brackets where relevant)

Total images posted in the diary: 365 [hurrah again, mission accomplished]

Most viewed – by a long way my most viewed photo of all time, and one that was completely unplanned.

Reflections

A combination of smooth ripples and the colourful clothes worn by people on the bridge meant this shot of the reflections on the lake in St James Park captured peoples attention: 674 views, 47 favourites and 36 comments.  This photo also made it to ‘explore’ – one of the 500 photos flickr features each day, which I’m sure gave it more exposure. [last years top photo was Explore your library with 133, which has continued to be popular - reaching 216 views during 2011)

Number of diary images which appear in my top 20 all time most viewed: 4 [last year it was 2]

Number of diary images wich appear in the top 20 all time ‘most interesting’: 9 [last year it was 6]

Total views of photo diary images during 2011: 21,111 [8,680 in 2010]
Average views of each image:  58 [24]
Total views of all published photos during 2011: 49,791 [22,577 in 2010]

Categories include:
event/date specific: 54 [about the same, 41, although my definitions of this category are non scientific!]
local photos Kent) 48 [many fewer than last years 95 - guess I felt I'd already captured local views?]
London: 86 [more than last years 76, but this years figures are probably bolstered by 28 photos taken in St James' Park]

Travel related (including day trips and weekends away from home): 55 [43 in 2010]
This year, thanks to an amazing holiday in Sri Lanka, we visited a total of 11 unesco sites – 8 photos made it into the diary [up from 6 last year]

Owl related: 14 [11 last year]

No snow this year, and fewer sunrises: 4 [7] and sunsets: 5 [6]

The natural world continued to feature strongly:
flora: 49 [43]
while fauna saw huge growth: 41 [17]

Transport included:
more trains: 14 [8]
boats: 5 [6]
cars: 5 [none featured the previous year, although there were 5 planes - and none of those in 2011]
and other transport: 8 [2]

food and drink: 23 [12]

Two other notable photo/social media related anecdotes from my world last year, both are a credit to my colleagues (although one did tangentially feature in my diary too!). First Russell, and the amazing spider web photos. He tells the story eloquently in his own blog but it is a fantastic example of how the internet has made these stunning photos visible to a huge audience – over a million views that we can absolutely verify, and countless more via the many other galleries and channels in which they have appeared. It has received numerous accolades, not least being named recently as one of the Guardian’s “photos of 2011“. The second is the one I captured an example of  as my colleague is one of the founders of the Burgers and Nails blog.

Nail art

A simple concept – take a photo of hands with carefully manicured and/or decorated nails clutching a burger (preferably gourmet) and submit. This blog saw a huge rise in popularity when it was featured by the Huffington Post.

And finally, yes, keeping a photo diary is addictive, and yes, I have already started on Project 2012  – potentially an interesting year, and of course the difference already from my previous 2 sets, is that this set will I hope end up with 366 photos. Thankyou to all who have commented on or added my photos as favourites, I hope you continue to enjoy them!

 

A brief spell out of my comfort zone

Some thoughts on secondment – and what I’ve been doing for the last month.

Secondments happen quite a lot in government – offering people short term development opportunities in other teams, which help to meet a need, while hopefully giving the secondee useful experience they can take back when it ends. I confess this is the first time I’ve ever really experienced one, having been more often in the position of supporting junior staff as they move around, while planning frantically how to cover the vacancy they leave!

Having spent the last month working with the digital team in the Department for Culture, the Olympics, Media and Sport (DCMS) doing some thinking about government’s digital needs during the Olympics,  I’m now very definitely a convert – and hope department boundaries can become ever more porous so that when people have a need, people with the skills to meet that need can be released to help. The payback for the teams having to lose their colleague for a while will be both in the additional experience and ideas that person will bring back when they return, but also the knowledge that it should be reciprocated, and if they have a need, they can put out a call.

So – high points and challenges? High points have included working on a fascinating subject. I should confess I’m not really interested in the Olympics as an event – apart from being incredibly proud of my cousin and his achievements in 5 (yes FIVE) paralympics but have been intrigued to be involved at this stage of the planning, where an immense amount of work has already been done, but as 2012 approaches and the whole thing becomes more urgent, communications planning and strategy is turning into practical implementation. The main thing that has been brought home to me time and again is the sheer scale of the event – the numbers I keep hearing are huge, whether it be of journalists expected to descend on London, to potential audience of the opening ceremony. And the size is unsurprisingly mirrored by complexity. There are at least five big areas of responsibility (including transport, London – as represented by the Mayor’s office, and LOCOG – who are actually tasked with putting on the games) who all have a role to play, their own infrastructure and depending on what the issue is that arises, their own input and involvement in the solution.

To meet this challenge, those involved are taking part in a series of practise events  and another high point for me was taking part in the most recent of these. It was a curious event, as it meant we had to pretend we were actually existing during the start of the games – being fed with a series of scenarios that we then worked through to test the models created and the tools that people working during games time would have access to. However, as it was just an exercise, none of the normal digital channels that would be available were live, so for example when the scenario said that there were some finals of events happening (with the heavy hint that a Team GB medal might be on the horizon) there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing asking for the results – when in reality, every broadcaster, twitterer and of course the excellent LOCOG Games site  would have given us every detail we needed – no doubt with live photos and film.

A literal high point was a meeting over in the LOCOG offices in Canary Wharf, which offers wonderful views of the Olympic site:

View of the Olympic Park

Back to daily experiences – working in a different office has taken some getting used to. The whole team – both digital and across the whole news and communications directorate have been extremely welcoming and helpful – but absolutely everything is different in this office to my home department! A month is not really long enough to rewire your brain to different ways of working, so many thanks to people who patiently answered the same question several times, and apologies to people who tried to reach me, but I had forgotten to log in to my phone!

Working on anything related to the Olympics also necessitates learning a new language. I had thought international development won the prize for number of acronyms and specific terminology , but LOCOG, GOC, LMC and many more means I think there is strong competition. I guess the same could be said for lots of areas of specialisation – roll on my exposure to the military!!

Returning ‘home’ on Monday, I’ll keep an eye on how the things I had a hand in evolve: looking forward to seeing digital services to journalists delivered and will of course look at the social media offerings.

In conclusion: the last month has been fascinating, exhausting, extremely busy, but definitely worthwhile – the best way to gain an insight into the world beyond my home department. Also, it has confirmed my view that it could only benefit government communications if departments could become even more flexible, lending people between teams to meet short term needs.

 

Belated thankyou – local studies librarians of Yorkshire

We went on holiday to Yorkshire recently, and besides visiting 2 world heritage sites (Fountains Abbey and Saltaire) and spending a day in York, we also fitted in another of my interests: tracking down evidence of Carnegie’s legacy.

This has been a longstanding piece of research, I guess started when I was growing up in Kendal, and my earliest library membership was in a building funded by Carnegie. I was completely unaware at the time, but since then, am enjoying finding out more about how these buildings came to be in the first place, but also, as many reach their centenaries, what has now become of them. The element of my research that involves capturing their status in photographs has become even more urgent this year with the huge scale of local authority budget cuts proposed, which in some areas is threatening libraries to an unprecedented degree. Many others have written about problems in their areas, protest groups are using all means possible to raise awareness and encourage people to make their feelings known – for example the work of Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries, and a map which aims to chart the scale of proposed closures.

Back to my trip though – we were able to see 9 buildings funded by Carnegie: Harrogate, York, Castleford, Keighley, Gainsborough, Ilkley. Pontefract, Shipley, and Normanton – and the good news (for now at east) is that 6 of those still appear to be thriving. All were busy when we visited – and not just with people clustered around the terminals which provide internet access. Harrogate has just reopened after a refurbishment programme that has cleaned it up on the outside, and opened up the inside,  and the local studies librarian in Keighley – the first Carnegie endowed library to open in England gave me a special newspaper supplement which commemorated their refurbishment programme, which included restoration of some intricate wall paintings.

Of the 3 which are no longer libraries, Pontefract, which is a beautiful building built in art nouveau style, is now the town museum. Again, busy when we visited, but the lady at reception was extremely helpful, and we were able to find out lots of information from the archive/records room.

Normanton is still in good repair – and when we asked in a local cafe, it was familiar to them and our request prompted another customer to wonder what the plans were for it. There is no signage on the outside, but the door was ajar, and we did speak briefly to the receptionist – who confirmed that the carving above the entrance was the only evidence of its former function which remained.

The last library was the most forlorn. Found by chance, as we approached Saltaire, the former Shipley library stands on a busy junction and is boarded up. Web research reveals it has had a couple of uses since the library closed – including as a dancehall (parallels there with the building in Hackney), but its future is now uncertain. It has been bought, and planning permission given to turn it into flats but there is no evidence of any work.

Apart from this last one, my main memories of the Carnegie legacy in that small part of northern England are of light, airy, busy buildings – and I hope they long continue to be so.

If any readers of this blog know of Carnegie libraries in their town, do let me know. Those I have visited can be found in my flickr set and I have information about many more, but am always hungry for more information.

 

Photo diary project 2010

It started out as a bit of fun, something to look back on and provide evidence of things that happened during the year, and became a really interesting project. Challenging at times, especially when the weather was grey and cold and the last thing I wanted to do was take photos, but always fun. Besides introducing me to lots of new people via flickr and simply getting me out and about more, it as also helped me think more about social media channels overall – which to use to share different things with different groups of friends, contacts or family, how the more specialist tools can feed into the more commonly used ones (and vice versa) with very little extra effort. It has also fed my obsession with statistics. Flickr offers rich behind the scenes information and it has been fascinating to keep an eye on these through the year – finding out how people find my photos and in some cases, where they end up. Some of the images which I thought nothing of  - just a snatched photo taken during my lunchbreak – have had the highest views.

I’ve seen people drop out of the 365 groups on flickr because they felt that the pressure to produce at least one photo every day has meant they felt unable to take the sort of photos they wanted to. A shame, but not a worry I’ve had. Looking at a wide cross section of other peoples photos has given me inspiration for different angles to approach a subject, but as I have always leaned towards recording the moment rather than creating a work of art, I haven’t felt that pressure. One area I am envious of others however, is in taking photos of people.  Only about 18 images from the whole year have contained recognisable people – and 6 or 7 of those were either performers, or ‘celebrity’ visitors who appeared at work. I enjoy looking at the sort of street photography that fellow members of the Medway Towns flickr group produce, and Paul Clarke never fails to inspire with his recording of what would at first appear to be quite mundane events.

As I mentioned, I didn’t have an aim beyond recording the year. If asked, I would have said that my preference was for photos of wildlife/nature, beautiful scenery, interesting buildings such as castles or grand palaces – but also for recording things that are in danger of disappearing. Oh yes, and it may have become obvious during the year that I love libraries and owls. However, looking back over the year, while some of these preferences have definitely featured large, I’ve also experimented a bit – and as mentioned above, its been interesting to notice which photos have captured other peoples attention – either prompting comment (134 during the year), or, the ultimate compliment of either being marked as a favourite (22) or even added to a gallery.

Some fairly random statistics follow:

Total images posted in the diary set: 365 (hurrah – mission accomplished!)

Most viewed: Explore Your library, with 133 views. Interesting to note, my second most viewed was also a library – Victoria library (another lunchbreak walk) with 102 views

Explore your library

Least viewed: tricky, as of course some have been live for a much shorter time – however there is a small batch of fairly un-noticed photos, probably just viewed by close family! which have fewer than 10 views
Number of diary images which appear in top 20 all time most viewed:2
Number of diary images wich appear in top 20 all time ‘most interesting’:6 – which includes a relatively new entry as the top ranked photo according to flickr’s definition of “interestingness” – my collection of tiny owl models, with 45 views, 8 favourites and 5 comments.

Owl collection

nb I have been publishing to flickr for over 4 years, and have nearly 1,500 photos live.

Total views of photo diary images during 2010: 8,680

Average views of each photo diary image: 24

Total views of all published photos during 2010: 22,577

Categories published:

local (Kent) -108
of which: Rochester and surrounding towns (scenes, events or details) -95
of which: home (garden and views) -23

Personal (souvenirs or general home photos) -11

Family related -8

Event driven (either calendar date such as Easter or saints day, or local, such as a festival) -41

London -76
Of which: work related -8
Or, only taken because they are close to work -31

Travels (includes day trips and weekends away from home)-55

Wildlife -
Flora -43
Fauna -17

Plus animals in art – either sculpture or model: 14

Produce (crops/harvest) -11

Owl related -11

Libraries -9

Unesco heritage sites -6
nb I did visit a couple through the year, but for some reason, they didn’t all make it as diary photos!

Abstract -12

Transport -
trains -8
boats -6
planes -5
other -2

Sky -15
Of which: sunset -6
sunrise -7

Weather focus (rain, snow) -26

Finally, to those of you who have looked at my photos, I hope you have enjoyed them. And yes, I am going to continue the project – maybe try out different themes, definitely try and improve my skills in photographing people. My main advice for anyone thinking about doing this sort of project:

1. ALWAYS have your camera with you,
2. Dont despair – recording even the most mundane things like your dinner will usually bring back a smile when you look back,
3. Dont rush to take easy things – if they will be there tomorrow, better to capture something fleeting which relates to the day
4. Enjoy it!

Not sure if I’ll ever come close to the amazing Jamie Livingston who I blogged about earlier this year,  but who knows!

 

On Remembrance Day

I’m always sad on Remembrance Sunday, when hearing the many stories of families who lost people during the two World Wars, and in the many conflicts since. I count our family as lucky, as despite hailing from the East End, and hearing stories from both sets of grandparents of the sky being black with planes during the blitz, and the fact that my Dad’s house was hit by one of the first V2s to arrive in London, we didn’t lose many close relatives.
So today is the day to remember the one person who was killed – my great uncle Charles, and also (as is the focus of this blog usually) to continue my amazement at the power of the web to help my family piece together the parts of his life that we knew nothing about.

The first piece of research is an obvious place to start – the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Their website has evolved and now contains much more than dry facts about who is buried or commemorated where.  From that I find confirmation of his full name: Charles John Solly, the fact he was a pilot officer in the RAF and he died on the 22 June 1944. That much we knew, but the record provides the additional information that he is buried in Leopoldsburg war cemetery and gives a grave reference. A nice additional touch is the information in the form of a certificate, which includes a photograph of the cemetery.

Using the web to dig further – (this, I must add was done by other members of my family, who scoured bulletin boards and tracked down the associations which exist to keep the records in order and make sure people and events are remembered) – we found out that he was known as Mike. This was curious – but helped us understand the records we round of the plane crash where all dates and details matched apart from the first name of the pilot!

The most fascinating information was found on the website of 207 Squadron, where we  found not only photos of his grave:

Charles Solly: headstone in Leopoldsburg

and Charles “Mike” with his crew (he is sitting in the middle of the front row):

Pilot Charles 'Mike' Solly and his crew

but also lots of details about my great uncle, and his final mission. He was the pilot of Lancaster EM-M LL973, which was shot down during the attack on Wesseling, near Cologne. One of the comments on a photo gallery that a cousin has put together mentions something to follow up –  Chapter 6: ‘Shot down’ is a gripping account of 22 June. Apparently Charles’ final words over the radio were “Hello crew. Bale out. Bale out. Good luck”.  Many of his crew did survive, and the site records their visits to his grave. Probably the most poignant page records a visit to the crash site.

The crew is commemorated by a tree at the Aviation Heritage centre, East Kirkby – where they have a ‘taxiing Lancaster’ – it would be amazing to visit the memorial and see that in the background!

Just one of many people who displayed amazing courage during that time, I’m really pleased that the web can keep their story alive.