Farewell 2012

THANK YOU DEAR READERS!

For starters, let me send a warm THANK YOU to anyone who has visited this site, or Liked, Commented, Shared, +1’d or Retweeted any of my photos this year.  I am really grateful for the support, and hope to continue to share my photographs for a long time to come!  I have a lot more fun stuff planned for 2013, so please keep coming back and checking in when you have time.  There’s a lot more that I have in store for ya!

BLOG STATS for 2012 - HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY

At the end of a year, I like to look back and see how things have gone for me with this blog, statistically speaking.  Well actually, it’s more than just the blog, as I incorporate some stats from other places too.  I find data points interesting.  Honestly, they don’t really mean a whole lot, but it is fun to make comparisons and see how things are progressing.  

In short, 2012 was a great year for my blog and my photography in general.  I increased my readership here substantially while also having a heck of a good time.  That’s a win, in my book.  Though I take my photography seriously, my primary goal is to just enjoy creating and sharing my photos and to create content that others find useful, or beautiful, or both.

A couple of things that stood out for me in 2012:

• I published my first eBook, which you can get for free right here!
• I began contributing articles about HDR photography to the new HDR One site!
• I started a Newsletter!
• I hosted a photowalk in London - what a great experience!

So, onto the stats.  Here’s a high level summary:

Blog views: up 130% over 2011

Blog visitors: up 106% over 2011

Blog visitors were 80% new  - that’s a wonderful stat in my opinion

* 59% of total lifetime pageviews happened in 2012 - cool!

 * 60% of traffic came from the US, followed (distantly) by the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, India, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia and France. 

Flickr views: up >50% (not bad, considering I do zero engagement there)

500px views: up from 11,500 to nearly 80,000 (again, not bad for zero engagement)

Followers on Google+: up from 8400 to over 14,000

Facebook fans: up from ~200 to over 1400

Traffic referral sources:

• Google search ranks highest, but I think that is a given for everyone
• LightStalking was #2 for referral traffic, thanks to my friends at Toad Hollow!
• Facebook came in #3
• Google+ came in at #4

Well, that’s a high-level summary and in my opinion it was a great year by the numbers.  More importantly, it was a great year photographically as I detailed in a previous post.  I’m really focused on creating great photographs - even with my iPhone at times - and will continue to push myself to create in 2013. 

If you promise to keep coming back, I promise to keep creating and sharing my photos.  Sound like a good deal?  Great.  It’s a deal then.  :-)

See you next year!  Thanks, as always, for stopping by.

Best of 2012

For most people, the end of a year causes much anticipation of the new year that lies ahead, but we normally take a moment to reflect on the year that just finished.  As photographers, we tend to do the same.  As we hurry through our usual daily routines, sometimes it’s easy to forget just what all actually happened in a year.  Especially when you are my age and you forget a lot of stuff.  :) 

I will say that 2012 was - photographically speaking - an incredible year.  I had the opportunity to visit a lot of new places, and of course brought along my Nikon to document them.  Here’s a little travel summary for the year: 

• Flew over 100,000 miles
• Visited 10 foreign countries (some twice!): England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Austria, Canada and Panama
• Visited at least as many US Cities
• Took 30,000+ photos
• Had a blast doing the above

As you can imagine, it’s hard to pick your favorite photos from a large group.  It’s like asking a parent to pick their favorite child - without the negative consequences, of course.  I love all my photos - that’s why I took them - but I have been able to narrow it down and came up with a group of 12 photos that for various reasons I consider my best work of 2012.  And no, I did not plan to pick 12 for 2012, it just sort of happened that way.

I also realized that I chose 6 from the US and 6 from Europe.  So, here are my 12 favorite shots from the year that we are leaving behind.  I raise a glass to you, 2012, you were kind to me in many ways, and I am thankful for that.

Here are my favorites from Europe:

And here are my favorites from the US: