Look at this photograph (8 million times)

Foto.Feola.Friday for May 10, 2024

Look at this photograph
Every time I do, it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red?
And what the hell is on Joey's head?

Foto.Feola.Friday

I’ve been keeping an eye on my Google Maps photo views the last few days. Wednesday it ticked over 40 million to this: 40,006,825.

40 million views is a big number, though I’m more bemused than anything else. It is humbling both to have that sort of traffic, and to see that my random shots of locations have orders of magnitude more traffic traction than all my carefully composed photographs combined. But in the end I cannot complain; people are looking at my photographs.

Here’s the first image I posted more than a decade ago of the Dallas Vintage Shop; it’s been viewed 45,417 times:

And here’s the most recent I posted last month; my 1,394th photo. No one has viewed it yet:

My most viewed photo is this shot of the Taqueria Jalisco with 8,114,318 views:

This image of the now-closed Tap In Grill and Pub has 3,388,579 views:

Two photos with 11.5 million views. Fascinating. Another four photos have over a million views; a fifth will break into 7 figures any day. All but one are restaurant interiors, which says something about me, or the viewers, or both.

Next on Perfecting Equilibrium

Sunday May 12th — The new Golden Age of Black & White - We have entered a new Golden Age of Black and White Photography. The extraordinary image quality of monochrome digital sensors can be combined with the enormous dynamic range of newer display technologies such as Organic Light Emitting Diodes; OLED screens offer true blacks and greater dynamic range than was possible with film. The combination delivers image quality that rivals the large format 8x10 cameras and custom wet darkrooms available only to giants such as Ansel Adams.