Flickr - Millions of views

I've used the photography sharing website Flickr for a long time. It is a good way to share your images with fellow lovers of photography, and by using the Groups and GeoTags it's a good way of researching a future destination before you go to find great locations to shoot from or understand if a place is worth visting from a photographic point of view.

With the weather being so rotten and 'dreich' in Glasgow this June, I was skimming through my old posts on Flickr this week and came across their Statistics feature which shows you how many views your images have had today, this week and all time. I'd never used it before and was quite surprised to see my images on Flickr have been clicked on and viewed a staggering 2,800,000 times! Wow! That is a lot of views. I was even more surprised to look at my Top Ten most viewed images of all time on Flickr, and my most viewed image ever was certainly a surprise! I'd have guessed it would have been one of my Mongolia images that were heavily featured in Lonely Planet, and made me a finalist in Travel Photographer of the Year, but it was not. I cannot honestly explain it to be honest. I know images are used by websites and magazines from Flickr, with a credit for the photographer, so maybe my number one image was used somewhere without my knowledge for a feature? Who knows but it was viewed thousands and thousands of times. So I will list my Top 10 most viewed Flickr images below in reverse order with a small commentary about how I came to shoot each image.

Number 10

'Wisdom' - Kerala, India.

I was wandering the back streets of a town called Thiruvanathapurum in Kerala, India late one afternoon and came across this man who was lighting incense sticks inside his shop and kindly allowed me to photograph him. I loved this one in Black and White with the smoke from the incense swirling around him. It's been viewed thousands of times on Flickr and is in tenth place in my most viewed images on that site.

Number 9

'Bar Lights of London' - London, UK.

One of my very first posts onto Flickr makes it into my top ten. I was surprised to see this image has been so popular. It was just me just playing around with Prime lenses, and messing about with Depth of Field and 'Bokeh' many years ago. However it has been viewed thousands of times. Maybe it made it into a feature or magazine article somewhere with a nice credit link. Who knows?

Number 8

'Go Selfie Yourself' - Mykonos, Greece.

I do love this image, and was delighted it's been seen so many times on Flickr. Just me wandering around Mykonos Town at sunset, and I saw this group in Little Venice taking selfies with the iconic view of Mykonos Town in the background. I just grabbed my camera and shot a few frames off as quick as I could and ended up with this. One of the rare times I did not get the permission of the participants before shooting, but they were happy enough to let me use it afterwards.

Number 7

'Casino' - Las Vegas, USA

Once again, an old photograph from my early days on Flickr that Im a little surprised to see feature in my Top 10. I can understand this one though, as I do know that this image has been published many times in various newspapers and magazines with a credit back to me. It's been used in many articles about gambling or Las Vegas so a little easier to understand where the thousands of views on Flickr have come from. Just me shooting at night time in old Las Vegas around Fremont Street.

Number 6

'Wild Mountain Horses' - Altai Mountains, Mongolia.

Part of my trilogy over three months in Lonely Planet Magazine. No surprise to see this featuring so highly in my Top 10 as Lonely Planet used this image extensively. It shows nomadic 'cowboys' high in the remote Altai Mountains of Mongolia breaking a wild horse bareback so they could introduce it into their herd.

Number 5

'Golden Eagle Hunters' - Altai Mountains, Mongolia.

Another of the Lonely Planet trilogy. It features Father & Son hunters who use this Golden Eagle to hunt for foxes etc in the Altai Mountains. Personally I think I took better images of them than this one, but I can understand why it's been viewed so many times. It's a striking image which really shows the massive wingspan of the Golden Eagle.

Number 4

'Shohan - the Mongolian Eagle Hunter' - Altai Mountains, Mongolia.

Another Eagle Hunter image and this is the one I would have guessed would be my most viewed image. It's been published widely many many times not just in Lonely Planet but in newspapers and magazines all over the world however it only comes in at number four on my Flickr list. An image I am incredibly proud of taking and one that took hours to take. Lying on my back in a Mongolian field waiting for that one shaft of light to hit Shohan and his Eagle which only lasted 30 seconds, on a grey and miserable day in the Altai Mountains.

Number 3

'Eagle Girl' - Altai Mountains, Mongolia.

I photographed Aisholpan in 2014 when she was 13 and just a young teenage girl in the male dominated world of training Golden Eagles to hunt in Mongolia. Two years later acclaimed photographer Asher Svidenski's images went viral and the movie The Eagle Huntress was made featuring her by the executive producer of the Star Wars movies which made her famous around the world. My images of her were published in 2014 by Lonely Planet.

Number 2

'Nubai' - Altai Mountains, Mongolia.

Another image I am immensely proud of taking, and one of the favourite portraits that I have ever managed to take. Nubai was an 81 year old nomad in the Altai Mountains when I met him and photographed him inside his Ger (Yurt) very close to the Chinese border with Mongolia. We were in such a remote location that our guide told us these nomads had never met outsiders or westerners before. A truly humbling experiance.

Number 1

'Bike' - Amsterdam, Netherlands

And so to my most viewed image on Flickr, and this is it! An old black dutch bike leaning against a blue wall is my most viewed with more than double the number of viewings than number 2 on this list. Literally tens and tens of thousands of views of an old bike and I have absolutely no idea why? Of all the images I have taken over the years, it's quite funny that this is the one that is top of the charts for me and I am clueless as to why? If you know and have seen it feature somewhere, then please do let me know so I can sleep easy :)