The primary site that I use for posting my photos in an online community is Flickr. I also post to Instagram, Vero, and Twitter sometimes, but I think Flickr gives me more of a photographic community than these other places and it is quite an established and well trafficked site. As 2018 comes to end, I am reviewing what the Flickr community has said about my photos – which ones did best and what I think about that. So this blog entry has my Flickr highlights for 2018.

I currently have 79 followers on Flickr, which is not a lot. I generally post my images in 10 – 15 Flickr groups for exposure and then see what the community says. In the last few months my follower count has increased quite a bit for some reason so the later photos probably got more exposure. The following photos received the best feedback on Flickr this year.

I posted the following photo to Flickr on April 7. It received 444 views and 13 favorites (Flickr’s version of likes). I like this photo quite a bit, but I was kind of surprised that it received much attention on Flickr as it is just a tree and some wildflowers taken with a wide angle lens. I took this while hiking at Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

The next photo is an HDR sunset at Inks Lake that I took on June 21. This image received 899 views with 12 faves. I like this image because of the sun on the foreground rocks and flowers and I actually got interest in this photo from a person making a hill country brochure.

The next photo is one of my personal favorites of the year. It is me sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night at Lost Maples State Natural Area with the milky way, Mars, and Jupiter in the sky in front of me. I probably love this photo because of the memories of the solitude and camping I associate with it. I put this photo on Flickr on July 15, it got 1010 views and 11 faves (anything over 10 is a victory for me).

This Inks Lake sunset taken on September 14 received 384 vies and 14 faves. I didn’t expect to get much of a reaction on Flickr with this photo, maybe a fave or two before I pulled it off, but it did well enough.

The milky way over the observatory photo that I took on November 2 while at a star party was viewed 825 times with 14 faves. I like the composition of this photo.

I did the following HDR merge while camping on November 23 and it was viewed 428 times with 18 faves. Just a mossy tree branch over a stock tank at the farm.

This long exposure taken of the Austin Central Library on November 14 had 486 views and 19 faves. I am pretty happy with this photo.

And finally, this photo from the side of the road in Big Bend National Park did quite well, with 450 views and 17 faves. Just some nice late afternoon light with the road running up into the distance.

There were a couple of other photos from Big Bend that also did well, shown below.

Nikon D750 + Sigma 70-200mm, f/2.8; 70mm, f/5, 1/160s, ISO100

Nikon D750 + 16-35mm, f/4; 30mm, f/9, 1/50s, ISO100

Flickr Explore

Flickr has a feature called Explore in which some algorithm selects photos and adds them to the Explore page where they get a lot more exposure than they ordinarily would. I have had a few photos added to Explore and I have never considered them my best photos, but they get tons of views and faves, so I put them here:

I posted this photo of cows and storm clouds on July 2. It was picked up by Flickr Explore and received 2318 views and 54 faves. It’s an OK picture, though I wish had taken time to compose it and work it better.

And this sunrise photo from Big Bend National Park was added to Explore and so far has received 12,987 views and 235 faves. This is the best a photo of mine has ever done on Flickr. I like the picture but it could use some interesting clouds. According to Flickr, this is my best photo of 2018.

Not counting the Explore photos, the picture that I took of the Austin Central Library is my best photo of 2018 (according to the Flickr community). I more closely agree with that.

Thanks for reading. I hope to make much better photos in 2019. Leave a comment below if you like.