Flickr stats: me wins, my photos lose, meh

Screenshot of the Flickr app showing the all-time views, the 1st photo has had over 124K, 2nd 45K, 3rd 36K, 4th 30K, 5th 28K. All but the 4th are photos picturing me.

What my top-five most viewed photos tell me is that I should have been a model in my early thirties rather than a wannabe photographer.

I have been using Flickr since 2005.

Well, I have not used it for several years now, and I think I just understood why:

The most viewed photos are almost entirely pictures I posted that picture me. They are part of the story I told about me on this platform, but they are not photos I took. (Although I did a series of self portraits in a dusty mirror which are of me, by me.)

But I don’t use the platform to show myself (that’s what Instagram is about, right? And I left that one already), as much as to showcase my photography at the same time as I photo-document bits of my life.

The only photo where I am not, among the top five, is a byproduct of its title being the same as swingers club (a coincidence, which I blogged about in 2006 when I figured out why it was my most popular photo.)

I think I will find out how much longer the pro membership I paid is, and find an exit strategy for all of my photos on this platform. There is appetite for how I was about 10 years ago more than there is appetite for the stuff I want to show, much to my dismay.