My Top 10 Most Popular Photos On Flickr
Flickr is great, but nothing on what’s developing over at Full Frame…
It’s been almost five years since I’ve posted a photo on Flickr. I used to love Flickr so much. I first joined in February 2005.
But you know the story, probably. It’s not a particularly long one, but it ended with a 1,000 photo limit and then you had to pay a minimum of £6.99 per month. I couldn’t justify or afford to pay this, so I had to stop posting.
Sad times.
Fortunately, though, Flickr didn’t follow through with their threats of deleting all my images. Today I decided to pay up, and I uploaded two photos.
I’ve gotta say, it felt good.
I now have 13,842 photos on my account. (My username is 8dave if you’re interested. My original account is daviddave, which features 5,504 photos.)
To celebrate my return to Flickr, I figured I’d share with you my top ten most popular photos, and give a little explanation about each one. When I say most popular photos, it’s important to mention that Flickr has four categories that contribute to a photo’s popularity. These are: Most Faved, Most Interesting, Most Viewed, and Most Commented.
So to clarify, these are my top ten ‘Most Faved’ photos on Flickr.
In reverse order:
10
Up on the moors. This view was a five-minute drive from our house in the north of England. I enjoyed driving up here, parking up, and just sitting. I’d snap a few photos, listen to some music, read a little, and then drive back home.
My favourite aspect of this photo is the vivid orange contrasted with the dull grey clouds on the right. It’s a reminder to me that however dark things seem, there’s beauty waiting around the corner.
9
I’m a big fan of getting down low to the ground with my camera, especially in the grass. I didn’t need to lie on my belly for this, though, as it was shot on a Fuji X-A1 which has a flippy screen. I loved that flippy screen.
I loved the entire camera, actually. It was old and plasticky, but the original Bayer sensor produced some amazing images.
My favourite part of this image is the whiteness of the flower, and also the way the blade of grass on the right balances out the composition.
8
Someone commented on this photo as follows:
Great photo, it looks perfect in b+w, very clean and simple and makes the viewer (well, me at least) wonder what the story is.. the raindrops and such.. is a little bit lonely feeling…
I didn’t reply, but I’ll tell you what the story is.
The raindrops are not raindrops. The sunglasses are on our kitchen worktop, and judging by the amount of dust on the lenses, they clearly haven’t been worn for some time.
That’s about it. No story. No mystery. Just evidence of my untidiness and desire to photograph random objects.
7
My first E-P1! Loved it. That’s why I got another one seven years later.
Check out the sharpness. The grain. The colours.
Who says you need modern cameras to shoot quality photos? It’s a complete myth, and people waste so much money getting the latest gear.
That said, I’d love a PEN-F — but even so, that’s a pretty old camera as well.
I can’t remember, but I’m guessing this was shot up on the Moors, just like the first image. I seem to have a penchant for shooting raindrops through a car windscreen.
6
This is a Typical Dave photo.
And here’s another comment:
Cool shot — the mundane, interesting.
Hmm. Thanks, I think?
It’s an iron, but you guessed that. I think I was experimenting with close focusing. The Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 was good at that. But it wasn’t a great lens, all things considered. I preferred the look of the images that the much cheaper f/2.8 version gave me.
This was the time when I owned both the 17mm and the 25mm f/1.8 lenses for my E-P1. It was nice having these focal lengths available. They’re pretty standard: 17mm in Micro Four Thirds equals 34mm in full frame, and 25mm is a 50mm lens.
To this day I’m still not sure which focal length I prefer. Probably depends on what kind of mood I’m in.
Anyway — I’ve just noticed this is my third monotone image. I do like black and white. Much more than most other people, it would seem.
5
This is my daughter. She was three at the time of shooting.
And this is my personal favourite of this selection of photos.
In our old house, up north, we had a nice big living room, with long windows, and heavy curtains which touched the floor. She loved hiding behind the curtains and gazing out of the window, even though all she could see was the small front garden and a large hedge.
I miss that house. I miss most things about the north, to be honest.
I saw this image before I pressed the shutter button. I knew it was going to be good. And my daughter paused for long enough for me to shoot exactly what I wanted.
4
We were visiting the Lake District for the day, and took a ride on a steam train.
I was excited to notice the steam had somehow framed this house absolutely perfectly. I was ready to shoot it, and was delighted with the result. It couldn’t have worked out better.
Even without the steam, I would have been pleased with this image. The isolated white house, surrounded by bare trees and mounds of grass, made for an eerie scene.
In an ideal world, the house would be shifted to the left slightly, but we were on a moving train and I had to shoot quickly before the steam evaporated and the moment passed.
Before I move on, just a note to observe that this is the second photo in the top ten which was taken on the Olympus E-PL5. I owned this camera for 11 months. It wasn’t the best — but it was my first Micro Four Thirds camera, and I was very fond of it.
3
Why I felt it necessary to include text on this image, I am not sure. I regret it, as I like this photo a lot, and would prefer the text not be there.
Oh well.
When I posted this photo, 13 years ago (I feel old!), I remember being surprised at how popular it proved to be. I wasn’t convinced about the colour tones I’d chosen in my post-processing.
I remember shooting it, and I knew it would be a good one. I was just surprised by the response. It received 16 comments (a lot for me), and my favourite comment of all was:
badass!
This is the only image of the top ten which was shot on my Canon 40D. It was my second DSLR (the first was a Nikon D50), and at the time it was the best camera I’d ever used. I had it for about three years I think, so it still holds the record as the camera I’ve owned the longest.
2
At this point in time I had just acquired a Nikon D7000. I bought it with the funds from the sale of my Ricoh GR. This was probably my second biggest photographic mistake, after selling my Fujifilm X70 the first time around.
The GR was a beautiful, exquisite, masterpiece of camera.
Move on, Dave, move on.
The Nikon D7000 was OK. When I bought it, I couldn’t afford an AF lens, so I bought a manual focus E Series lens off eBay. It was nice as I didn’t need an adapter to mount it, but it wasn’t great.
I’m surprised this image is at number 2, to be honest. And another black and white one. Interesting.
And at number one…
1
Yep. Ricoh GR. Number One.
It makes sense. A beautiful camera and a beautiful photo.
I’m not joking — whenever I take photos of flowers, even now, I still have this image burned into my mind. And no photo I take ever lives up to it. More often than not, the end result of an image is down to the photographer’s skill — but in this instance, the camera had a lot to do with it.
I remember that I shot this using the cross-process filter in the GR. I loved the colours it produced. As well as that, the detail on the petals — the texture this lens was able to recreate — stunning. I was blown away, and am so happy this made it to number one.
Only six comments, but an incredible 185 faves, and 10,447 views.
Thanks for sticking with me to the end, I appreciate it.
I’m excited to be back on Flickr, and do let me know if you have a profile there so I can follow you.
But, that said, I actually find greater excitement in being part of the community here at Full Frame. It’s clearly the best publication on Medium, and I’m looking forward to contributing more in the future and getting to know many more photographers who post here.
