The Tree Whisperer:

Remember back when I wrote that one of my pictures on flickr seemed to be pretty popular, but I didn't think it was such a great shot?

You 'member, right? This one:



Last night/today, another one of my pictures got real popular, but this time I had a clue why.

Said picture:



In the comments for this one, a few people congratulated me for being on flickr's Explore page. Flickr keeps track of the daily top 500 pictures that have the most comments/favorites/combination of both attached to them.

Bear in mind that during an average MINUTE at flickr, there are approximately 5,000 pictures uploaded. Every sixty seconds! Being in the top 500 is pretty outstanding on its own, but there *is* a catch to it. Some photographers are very popular and consistently hit the Explore page. The more exposure your picture has (adding it to groups, having a lot of contacts that can view it, etc.) the greater your chance for getting noticed. Of course, it helps if your picture is good, lol.

In my case, I'm part of some local groups (Central Coast, Central Valley, etc.), of course the ravelry-related groups, a few groups pertaining to my camera brand, and lastly a smattering of groups with focuses that interest me (landscape, nature, etc.) If one of my pictures fits the description of that group I'll add it (not always, but usually).

When that first picture got popular, I didn't know why. Once the second picture garnered so much interest, I went looking . . .

Third picture down.

The first picture.

Over at Big Huge Labs, you can search to see if any of your pictures are listed on the Explore page. (Those links may not work if you don't have an account there. It's free and has many fun picture toys to play with so go check it out!)

That's how I just found out my March picture had hit the big time.

You can also look up other people! Sneaky-Pete, I know, but it is all in the public domain. Here's a shot by Mike Baird - a local photographer who is a wealth of information about picture-taking and local nature stuff.

Frecklegirl (Jess if you know ravelry) even hit the #2 spot one day last year!

It seems my forte is taking pictures of trees. I'da never guessed!

P.S. Over at dopiaza.org, you can create a Set Manager - based on the criteria you give it, it will generate a group of your pictures together. In my case, I have it look at my pictures' flickr stats to daily generate a set of my most viewed pictures.