How To See Number of Views on Google+

What always made photo sharing services additive was the statistics about how many times our pictures get viewed. Does anyone care I just posted this? Was it viewed by 10 people? 124? 10,234? 

A quick tip to pass to those of you who post images on Google+ (and thanks to Joe Azure for pointing me to this) - there is a way to see number of views on images in Google+ as well. It's just not as straightforward as it is on places like Flickr and 500px. Here's how. 

1. Login to https://picasaweb.google.com/

2. Go to a particular album that stores a picture you want to check the views for

3. Click on the picture

4. At the bottom left side of the picture, it shows how many times it was viewed (in my case above, that image was viewed 11,624 times). 

That's it!

The only thing to remember - Google doesn't update the results live. They seem to be a day or two behind, which is probably similar to how they operate their Google Analytics pages. 

Now to be honest with you, I don't quite understand how accurate those numbers are. I have a few pictures that were veiwed over 300,000 times - which is possible because they went viral. I then have images that were viewed 30,000 times, and they did not go viral - so seems little high to me. Finally, an average image of mine that I post to Google+ (I'm in 30,000+ circles) is viewed 2,000 - 5,000, which seems reasonable to me, based on my experience with other photo sharing sites. 

But at any rate - good to know we have this function. 

New website design

For the observant among you, I have just migrated my website to a new design, and a new server. I also integrated my blog with the overall portfolio - something I meant to do for a long time. 

Unfortunately, it looks like I've lost my RSS feed from the blog. Still trying to see if I can get it back, but not hopeful. Please resubscribe if you still use RSS readers. 

I am also starting a newsletter. It will be coming out once a month and will feature my thoughts on fine art photography, news about my new projects, and a print giveaway. You can sign up here - http://www.ivanmakarov.com/newsletter/

I'm still working on filling galleries with images. But I thought I'd give you a heads up anyway.  

Yosemite Tree Family

Giving this new photograph as a print giveaway on Google+

Plus One Collection Launch

I'm happy to report that we've successfully launched the Limited Edition version of the Plus One Collection book which we, the community of photographers on Google+, put together.

The idea was born over Christmas break when we thought, hey, let's publish a book together, and not just that, but let's raise some money for charity. We picked Kiva and are excited to help such a great cause. All profits from the publication will be donated to Kiva.

It's truly been a big community project - 520 photographers came to us and said they want to join in. Requests came from all over the world - from Winnipeg, Canada down to New Zealand and Australia and from Japan all the way to San Francisco. Over 50 countries are represented!

People were willing to donate more than just photographs.. Volunteers helped put it all together as well - our designer is in England, the website is done by a guy in Switzerland, and a mobile app is put together by a good man in Germany.

We are first producing a paper book (with close to 190 photographs in it), and a more affordable paper version will be out in the next two weeks. We will also launch an ebook and an iOS app for the project (priced at just $5), hoping additional distribution channels will generate more sales, which means more help for Kiva.

In the first day of taking orders for Limited Edition of the book (essentially, a bigger version printed on a nicer paper, with a fine art print included) we received close to 100 orders for this book. That blew my mind because it's not cheap - $200 plus shipping. But people are eager to see a community project like this, and they want to help out Kiva. That means we raised over $5,000 in just one day.

I'll post more updates in the near future as we continue to raise funds, but in the meantime, make a visit and if you can, buy a copy!

 

Light Through the Window

Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur, CA

Nice big waves at Big Sur last weekend. Took my family to one of my favorite spots - Pfeiffer Beach, which is half point of the Big Sur coast.

The ocean is clean and powerful this time of the year. Best time for coastal photography and whale watching.

Speaking of whales - spotted one just a few miles north of this spot. Kids were ecstatic - first one we've seen in the Wild.