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Flickr stats on the rise…..

I have to admit that I do look at the statistics produced by Flickr for my photostream rather more often than I should, but as I have said before on this blog, there is something strangely addictive about the number of views or favourites you get on the latest upload.

Since I started to use Flickr on a regular basis I have been fortunate enough to have four properties selected for ‘Explore’ to date. I recognise that this is a tiny number compared to other photographers who have many more followers than I do and have been subscribers for several years.

I am all too aware that being on ‘Explore’ has a significant effect on the number of people who click through to view the photo. I have found that in the first 24 hours after the photo has been uploaded, one in ten views will lead to the image being marked as a favourite or a comment is made. As a consequence of this increase in traffic, the graph will peak at a much higher level than is usual on a typical day. On a typical day a total of between 100 to 150 ‘view counts’ would be average, so when I checked the stats early one morning this week, I was rather shocked to find they were over the 500 mark and rapidly rising. I had not uploaded anything the night before which could have been selected for Explore. In fact the image which was attracting all the interest was ‘Lone Sheep’, which I uploaded back in February. How strange I thought. What could explain all the interest in this one photo?

By the end of the day the total view count was well over 2,500 and the same thing repeated itself the next day. I soon found out that there was a very simple reason for the huge increase in the volume of traffic to my photostream. “Lone Sheep’ had been selected by Flickr to feature in their own Flickr Blog on a feature called Monochromatic Landscapes. There is only one blog entry each day and this particular entry only featured five photographs. Given the number of black and white landscapes on Flickr; there must be millions and millions; to have an image of mine selected rather felt like winning the lottery, sadly without the prize money of course! Still all publicity is good publicity, so I am definitely not complaining.

Click here for the link to the Flicker Blog Entry – Monochromatic Landscapes – which was published on the 23rd April 2013.

Below is the rather dramatic effect it had to my stats over a two day period .

2,783 per day and rising……

….and finally the image which has caused all the fuss.

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New Lake District gallery on my website

I launched my website www.alanfrostphotography.co.uk back in January of this year and I have spent some time fine tuning the design as well as creating some galleries. The home page is shown below.

Following my trip to the Lake District I thought that a selection of the images deserved a gallery in their own right, so this afternoon I updated the website to include twelve images.

Please click on either of the images which link to the relevant page.

LRPS Certificate

I have to say I was highly delighted to achieve my LRPS Distinction earlier this month. I have now received the certificate which makes it official. By way of recognition I thought I would change the header to this blog and incorporate the Royal Photographic Society logo.

…….and here is the certificate itself.

New club season underway

Earlier this week the first club competition took place at my local camera club in Havant. After a successful season last year when I was promoted to the ‘A’ league for both the print and projected image (PI) competitions. I was now be up against the ‘big’ boys and ladies of course! Our club is in the 1st division of the Southern Photographic Federation (SPF) for both prints and PI’s, so the standard is pretty high.

Much to my amazement, one of my two entries scored 10 out of 10 and is shown below. My grateful thanks to Derek Trendell ARPS, for getting the season off to a great start! The image entitled ‘Ride along the prom’ is shown below.

‘Ride along the prom’

My other entry was again black and white and called ‘Contemplation’. It scored 8.5 so I was very satisfied with the combined result. I am sure as the season progresses I will not have the same good fortune. During the season there are four competitons for both prints and PI’s, so a total of 8 submissions in each category. At the end of the season the best six scores are counted. At the very first meeting I attended a couple of years ago, I was told how difficult it was to select images for competitions, as all judges adopt a slightly different approach. They do all require a technically competent photograph, well composed with no blown highlights and reasonable detail in the shadows. The rest is somewhat subjective and what might grab the attention of one judge could easily be discarded by another. So the job of trying to decide which images to enter, gets harder and harder in the quest for a good score. I do like the competitive element but for some it may drive their photography down a certain path, which may not necessarily be a good thing. Right here and now it works for me but I might change my opinion in the future.

‘Contemplation’

I was also very pleased to learn that two of the photographs I had submitted for the SPF Exhibition were selected to be shown at the beginning of next year.The venue for the exhibition is Salisbury Library and starts on the 5th January and runs until the 26th January. There is a preview evening on Friday 4th January. Its a long way to go but it would be fun to be there on the opening night. More details of the SPF Exhibition here.

The two images which were selected are ‘Sand Waves’ and ‘Sea Swirl’ – both shown below.

‘Sand Waves’

‘Sea Swirl’

I don’t wish to brag, but ‘Sand Waves’ did rather well last season, as it won me ‘PI of the Year’. It came as quite a shock when it was chosen as I don’t remember winning any trophies before. It really was quite embarrasing to walk out of the hall clutching four of them! For the record here they are.

Unfortunately they will all need a good polish when this season comes to an end!