Views of My Photos Hit 400,000

Today I see that I have reached the 400,000 mark for views of my pictures on Flickr.

Back in mid-March, I hit the 300,000 mark, so it's only taken six months for those additional 100,000 views to take place.

What are people looking at? Generally, everything - travel shots, historical places, cars, color themed pictures and on and on.

But in terms of the top 5 most viewed pictures of those 400,000, it gets a bit more condensed into a few subjects:

#1 - A wood spiral staircase inside Peles Castle in Transylvania, Romania.

(C) Marc Osborn

#2 - Naked bicycle riders in the annual Ballard (Seattle) Solstice Parade.

(C) Marc Osborn

#3 - Another picture of the same spiral staircase at Peles Castle. 

(C) Marc Osborn

#4 - A closeup of inlaid decoration on the Taj Mahal in India.

(C) Marc Osborn

#5 - Another shot of naked bike riders in the Solstice Parade. 

(C) Marc Osborn

Copyright of all pictures in this post own by Marc Osborn. No use of any image for any purpose is permitted without prior written permission from Marc Osborn.

My Most Viewed Pictures - And What They Can Tell Us

A quick check in on the top 10 most viewed photos on my Flickr Photostream and what the stats may tell us:

As of today, the top ten most viewed pictures I've taken and posted on Flick are:

1. Close Up of Taj Mahal - 1,770 views
2. Naked Bike Riders at the Femont Solstice Parade - 610
3. Aircraft Carrier Yorktown in Charleston, SC - 573
4. Beijing Olympic Stadium - 532
5. Former South Vietnam Capitol Building - 486
6. Don't Tread On Me Flag - 454
7. Modern Ho Chi Mihn City - 392
8. 2009 Gay Pride Parade - 364
9. Modern Skyline of Ho Chi Mihn City - 337
10. Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza Ruins -336

These pictures are not necessarily the ones I think are my best shots. You can see some of those by clicking HERE.

But, I think these results show that:

• A lot of people are interested in military history - particularly the Vietnam era
• The Beijing Olympics was a huge interest to people - so much so that even though nobody has looked at my picture in a LONG time, it still is near the top of the most viewed list
• Loads of people want to know what the Taj Mahal looks like close up - not sure why, but it's pretty obvious
• Interest in the "Don't Tread On Me" symbol, flag and saying has shot up in interest along with the Tea Party
• Hey, pictures of naked bike riders or a Gay Pride parader are always going to get some views

Views Spike on My Photostream - But Why?

I had a pretty big day over on my Flickr Photostream Tuesday, but I'm not sure why.

Total picture views for the day were 162, and that's about 100 more than I get on an average day.

Most of the views yesterday were of pictures I took when we visited the grounds of the former Nazi concentration camp called Auschwitz in Poland. Those were clearly the views that spiked the daily total upward. But why?

Why all the views of Auschwitz on April 13, 2010?

Four guesses:

1. Poland is in the news right now because of the airplane crash that killed its president and other high officials. So...maybe there are people out looking at pictures of Poland and saw my pictures that way? That's a stretch, but maybe.
2. A few of my pictures were posted somewhere without my permission and whomever is looking at those pages online are also clicking through to see my pictures in larger format at my Photostream.
3. Random. As in, for no particular reason there just happened to be a lot of people in the world looking online for pictures of Auschwitz yesterday.
4. There is an anniversary of some sort associated with World War II, the Nazis or the Holocaust that I am not thinking of or don't know about, and that's driving views.

I'm gonna guess that it's either #3 or #4.

If anyone has any other ideas, let me know.

Next Photo Project - Poland

Pictures I took when we visited Poland in 2002 are consistently among the most viewed over on my Flickr Photostream.

However, what's there now are just a few rudimentary scans.

So, for my next photo project, I'll tackle the full set of pictures from that trip - which also included a great stay in Prague.

We took that trip back in the ancient old days before digital SLR cameras - at least ones that regular people could afford - so there'll be a lot of high resolution scanning going on.

I'll post a note when the pictures are up and live.

500+ Views on Photostream Sunday - Why?

Photos on my Flickr Photostream received an all-time-one-day high of 502 views yesterday, April 12...and I can't figure out why.

I think I've taken some great pictures over the years and that I've grouped the 557 I've uploaded so far into sets that make sense. But, most days I get somewhere between 20 and 40 views. Occasionally there will be a spike in views up to 100 or so, only to return back to the normal 20, 30, 40 range within a day.

Yesterday, however the view totals shot way, way up. By using the Flickr stats tool, it appears that people were looking at all kinds of pictures - so no discernible patterns. Pictures I took in China seemed to have a few more views than others, but again, pictures of all different subjects and locations were viewed.

It also looks like most people came to my Photostream through searches on Flickr itself, with a few more coming in via Yahoo! and Google.

Anybody have any theories? Could it be that randomly an abnormally high number of people found my photos on Sunday? Or, could there be a reason? Someone or some group specifically looking at my pictures? Or, looking at subjects that I have well represented?

I welcome any guesses or insights from people who know the ways of search engine or Flickr.

A view of Hanoi, Vietnam

As a baby born in 1969, Vietnam features prominently in the TV, movies and books I read or saw growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s. That's one reason visiting Vietnam generally, and Hanoi in the north in particular proved to be such a fascinating experience when Diane and I went there in 2006.

Suffice it to say, we had a wonderful time adventuring around the labyrinthof streets in old Hanoi, shopping, meeting nice people, eating at fantastic restaurants (some modern, some a century old) featuring both Vietnamese and French cuisine, taking a cooking class and much, much more.

I recently posted a few of the many pictures I took in Hanoi on my Flick Photostream.

Click here for the Hanoi set if you want to check them out. 

Better yet, go to Vietnam and see the country. You won't regret it.

Pictures of Southeast Asia Now On My Flickr Photostream

I have added pictures from our 2006 trip to Southeast Asia to my Flickr Photostream.

In particular...

Pictures of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam here.

Pictures of the region of Cambodia near Angkor Wat here. 

Enjoy.

I'll have more pictures from this trip to post over the next few weeks. And, if I can find the time, perhaps some thoughts on what we saw.