My last post reviewed my year in relation to libraries, this one returned to another traditional annual activity – looking back at my year of photo projects.
Having just completed my 8th annual photo-a-day project (plus my third 52 in a year weekly photo challenge), I’ve had a quick trawl through the numbers.
And the totals are:
- total views of photos chosen as photo of the day (as of 31/12/16): 63,596
- average number of views per pic: 174
- total favourites: 861
- total comments: 213
Most popular/viewed?
My spreadsheet (yes, a many sheeted spreadsheet, I’m a bit obsessed with categories – but only after the act – I like looking back, and at patterns) tells me last year’s project gained the most views so far (apart from one year where I had several photos in explore, which inflated the overall total).
My most viewed photo is a surprise – a snap inside Kibworth community library. A warm and welcoming place, but by no means the most photogenic library I’ve seen. 2510 views as I type – it is currently my 16th most viewed photo ever!
Second place goes to another snap – “Guess the Book” – possibly influenced by a combination of the keywords ‘lego’ and ‘Game of Thrones’? 1578 views to date (and no. 32 on the all time list).
Besides pure views, interaction is interesting. The image with the most likes is one of our regular foxes – this time captured in one of his ‘mozilla’ poses. Autumnal colours has 14 likes.
In a curious co-incidence, joint second are 2 photos of snowdrops – each with 13 likes (the 2nd one has 7 comments – and according to flickr…. (I have no idea how they calculate it,) its my 7th ‘most interesting’ – nb lavender harvest has fewer likes, comments and views, but is ‘ranked’ 6…. go figure!)
And the least viewed? Initially it was some lovely butterfly floortiles in the Grade I listed church in Ashbourne in Derbyshire, with just 32 views….. but, I realised when checking for this blog post, I’d forgotten to post them in any of the photo-a-day groups, so I remedied that, and of course this morning, it had gained a few more views! So – the ‘least viewed’ label now goes to the library in Kedleston Hall: – another from the Derbyshire holiday, but that one was in all the right albums.
Back to the numbers
50 photos were taken in our garden. 95 were in London – not surprising I guess as I spend most daylight hours there! 43 were taken out and about in Rochester.
I did much better this year with my attempt to try and take more photos of people: 19 (compared to just 8 last year). This is still the area where I am most out of my comfort zone – but will keep practicing!
Nature wins overall, with 111 photos featuring birds (37 – including 7 of our photogenic great spotted woodpeckers), flowers (32 – including 9 orchids), animals (22 – out of which 8 starred one of our foxes) and butterflies (18) plus a couple of fungi. I also took lots of landscapes.
Other interests are well represented in the project too. I took 11 photos of unesco heritage sites, and 39 of libraries (plus 13 book or book related photos – including 3 authors). Owls feature too – besides just 1 real owl (included in the birds total above), there were also 17 other ‘owl-related’ photos – its amazing how many you still see represented in art, or generally on ‘stuff’!
I chose 15 transport related photo-a day images – including 4 trains and 4 planes, and published only 8 sunrises/sunsets. But kept up the well-known social media tradition of recording food: 23 of the photos in the project were food or drink related (lots of cakes!).
Overall numbers
As a final numbers roundup, aside from the photo-a-day images, on flickr overall I now have 10,813 photos published (some of which are restricted to family and friends only) with 1,531,182 views (according to flickr stats, which do go through wobbly patches so I’m not 100% sure how reliable they are). And out of that total, I now have 62 photos which have been viewed more than 1,000 times. They are often photos which surprise me – sometimes there might be an explanation, like flickr explore, a certain group, or social media publicity, but sometimes I have no idea.
Besides the 2 photo projects mentioned, I published a further 24 albums (more than average…. maybe it was all those library expeditions!). I tend to set up an album when there are a number of photos from a particular place or trip, but do also add photos throughout the year to a number of generic albums, such as garden birds, libraries or fungus forays.
And my personal favourite for the year? Lots of them make me smile when I look back, wonderful events, memories of fun times with family and friends, or “right place right time” photos, but I think I might choose this one of the pelicans in St James Park.
I’ve taken their portraits many times – posing, resting or preening, but this is the first ‘action’ shot!
And remember I mentioned ‘people’ photos – well, weddings make it easy – and I do like this one of friends Ann and Dai’s wedding – a gorgeously hot mid-summer day, with lots of smiles, flowers and sparkles.
So – now on to 2018. Happy New Year (and of course, a new year of photos).
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