I’ve been posting photos on Flickr for years now, and I have found it interesting to check my activity stats periodically. In the early years, I was averaging a few dozen views in the first day on a good photo. Over the course of nearly four years, a few of those earlier photos have reached view totals over 2000, and several have totalled over 1000 views over the course of years.

Recently, I’ve improved my skills and started shooting more creative ideas. Over the past few months, I’ve watched as the better uploads had over 100 views in the first day, and then one broke 200. Just a few weeks ago, I had one go over 350 on the first day, and I was quite excited. In recent months, I’ve watched the peaks and valleys on Flickr’s new activity graph, and I’ve grown accustomed to an average number of views (for my entire photostream) around 200-300, with spikes around 900-1000 on days when I upload new photos.

I thought that was pretty good, until I looked at my stats for yesterday and saw that one photo had almost 1500 views, and that I’d reached 6280 total views on my stream for the day. That number significantly dwarfs my previous stats rendering them all but flat in comparison! What used to be major peaks and valleys are now little more than a sort of wavy line, followed by one giant spike.

So, what does this tell me? I think I’ve found something people like. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the new camera, or the new lens, or the new lights, or if it’s all just a result of a few really good shots of a really good model. Either way, it really raises the bar for my work. And that’s a good thing.

Sometimes you know you’re reaching a plateau. You feel like you’re just one detail away from reaching The Next Level™, but you don’t know what that detail is. Well, it seems that I may have found it. Now the next question is can I maintain it? And beyond that, what is the next level, and how do I get there?

Happy times.

This is a really interesting idea. Jay (aka, The Plug) tied a disposable camera to a bench with a sign reading:

Good afternoon,
I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I’ll be back later this evening to pick it up.
Love, Jay / The Plug

Here are the photos he got back when he had it developed.

Matt Medlen turned me on to this web site called Trash The Dress a month or so ago. At first I just glanced at it and resigned myself to look again when I wasn’t so busy. But I noticed that they had an RSS feed so I added it to my Google Reader. Then I forgot all about it.

Over the past few weeks, I keep noticing these really stunning wedding photos in my Reader, and when I looked up at what feed it was, it was Trash The Dress. That’s when I started paying attention. The site is a collection of really creative, outside-the-box photos of brides. It’s like fashion photography meets wedding photography, and it really makes me happy to think that there are some couples out there who are getting more than just the lame, cheap wedding photographer photos.

As a photographer, I also find the site very inspirational. There is a lot of creativity on display there.

Take a photo on your iPhone and then automagically post it to Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, Facebook, Blogger, and more, all in one shot.

CheapShooter.com has a new article documenting the seven deadly sins of Myspace photos, which gives details and examples of the offensive photo technique and explains what’s wrong with it.

I know why you do it. From that extreme of angle, people can’t tell from your Myspace profile picture that your nose is that big or your acne is that bad. But taking your profile picture from that angle just alerts us that something is wrong. Even if we can’t see it, we know there is something that you are trying to hide. Taking a Myspace profile picture like that isn’t fooling us – it’s just making us suspicious.

I saw a joke going around by email that had a similar theme, but it was just for humor’s sake. I like this one, because it’s actually written by a photographer for a photography blog.

If you’ve ever wanted to make a lighting diagram, you can do it with Lighting Studio 1.0. It’s a simple, web-based utility for making lighting diagrams. You can even save and share your lighting diagrams.

It doesn’t have the ability to print, however you could screen capture it and print it by other means. Hey, it’s not bad for free.

I’m really enjoying the Skull-A-Day blog. The author posts a new image of a skull every day. They’re all very creative and original. Today’s skull was carved from an organic bell pepper.

Also by way of Make Magazine, I found this top 10 list of mods for disposable cameras.

A cool blog about photobooths.

This is great! A photographer who is willing to be photographed in the same poses as his models.

“First, I really thought that the shots would be funny. Second, it was about the only truly creative idea I had ever had. Third, what better way to blunt the criticism that most nude art degrades women?”

If nothing else, the shots certainly are funny!