A picture is worth a 1000 words?

My web site provides a blog facility and I have used it occasionally over the past eleven years. I have written 51 blogs posts and posted them to my site over this period - an average of 5 posts a year. 

I have paid scant attention to visitor numbers for these blog posts, concentrating on regularly tracking visitor views of my photographs.

However, I noticed recently that a few posts were attracting visitors and decided to investigate further.

To my surprise I have had 33,191 visitors to my 51 blog posts as at 2^nd July 2021 - a visitor to number of posts ratio of 650:1.

On the other hand the ratio of visitor views to number of photographs on my site is 46,848 to 101,297 ie 0.46:1

So the ratio is 1413:1 ( 650/0.46) in favour of visitors of blog posts to photographs - a surprising result  if the software has accurately captured the views in each case.

I thought a picture was worth a thousand words, obviously not in my case. I have to admit surprise and a slight disappointed that the photographs rated so poorly compared to the blog posts.

The five top rated blog posts are:

1. Mark Shearman – Athletics Weekly Photographer
2. Index to events attended so far this year (as at Sept 2014)
3. 20,000 visitors on Zenfolio
4. Famous photograph of Tony Duffy
5. Race over the Glens on 2/1/12

The top 9 posts attracted in excess of 1,000 visitor views each.

On my blog I write about events I have attended, significant statistics, references to sports photographers that I admire etc.

See the Blog Index at: https://www.hmphotographs.com/blog-index

I have logged 45,000 visitors on my site by 5th April 2021. A visitor is counted when they open a full photograph. Viewing a thumbnail does not count

On Friday 26^th March 2021 I reached the significant milestone of 100,000 photographs on my website.

These photographs cover many sporting events including:

• Steve Ovett winning the Belfast International Cross Country at Mallusk in 1978
• Gregg Hannon winning the first Belfast Marathon in 1982
• Joey Dunlop riding in the North West 200 at Portrush in the 1970s
• Rory McIlroy breaking the Royal Portrush course record in 2005
• Kenesisa  Belele winning the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh in 2008
• James McIlroy (Olympic Athlete) winning the Irish Indoors 800m Championship in 2010
• Irish Open Golf at Killarney in 2010
• Kauto Star winning the JNwine Champions Steeplechase at Down Royal in 2010
• Horse Racing at Ascot in 2012
• Giro Cycling Race in Northern Ireland in 2014
• World Fire and Police Games in Northern Ireland in 2013
• British Fell Running Championship Races in the Mourne Mountains – 8 years from 2007
• 150th Irish Derby at the Curragh in Ireland in 2015
• Horse Racing at Royal Windsor in 2015
• British Amateur Men’s Golf Championship at Royal Portrush
• British Amateur Ladies Golf Championship at Royal County Down Golf Club in 2006
• Tiger Woods at the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush
• Mo Farah running in the Antrim Coast Half Marathon in 2020

 The first event of 2021 that I attended was horse racing at Down Royal on 4th February 2021. The was again held under COVID-19 restrictions with no spectators allowed and also limited racing personnel. It was good that the meeting went ahead the normal atmosphere was lacking with no spectators in attendance. Hopefully with vaccine roll-out underway spectators will soon be allowed to attend.

04th Drummullagh Rocky and E Walsh5 ( 9 , royal blue, orange chevron ) Trainer - S McParlan , Owner - Martin WardAA1V6749-Edit.jpg

01st Dixie Flyer and Mr B G Crawford ( 11 , green, red braces ) Trainer - S R B Crawford , Owner - Martin BakerAA1V6384-2.jpg

The last event I attended in 2020 was at Down Royal on 17th December 2020. The meeting was held under strict Covid-19 conditions whereby no spectators were allowed to attend. It was held before Christmas on the 17th rather the usual date of Boxing Day to accommodate live TV viewing.

The picture shown is of Ben Crawford riding Dixie Flyer trained by his brother Stuart at Magheramourne near Larne winning the Bumper Race - the final flat race of the meeting

IMG_0029-e2a (1)

I gave a Zoom talk to a few members of my local camera club on Thursday 26th November 2020.
The topic was on local sporting events I have attended that did not require accreditation. I showed some photographs from these events in order to demonstrate the variety of shots that could be captured in an attempt to encourage those members who were interested in trying sports photography.
I am the only member who regularly photographs sport.
As is obvious from the photographs shown, sports photography does not just include action but also presents opportunities to try: landscape, portraiture and street photography.
I covered 7 sports: rugby, cycling, cross country running, mountain running, road running, sailing and horses.
I presented from my iPad using an app provided by my web site provider Zenfolio which enabled me to download a collection of photographs from my website to my iPad.
I used mindmap software Simplemind to create the text slides saving them to jpgs.
For those interested here is a pointer to the slide presentation:

https://www.hmphotographs.com/p665421097

Storm Ciara was in progress over the UK and Ireland on Saturday 8th February 2020 - the Met Office had declared yellow warnings for rains and wind - when I attended the East Down Hunt Club Point to Point at Kirkistown ( a round trip of 96 miles for me). As I drove along the east side of Strangford Lough the sea was breaching the wall and cars travelling north were being lashed with sea water - very dangerous.

Kirkistown is flat and open , it is beside the car race track, so it was extremely windy and cold but was dry and sunny to start with but as the afternoon wore on it darkened and rain threatened.. The ground was firm and dry so no cars or lorries had to be towed out by tractor as has been the case at recent meetings at thus location.

There was a good turn out of horses but a smaller crowd than normal for this event. The was schooling after the racing with many horses taking part.

The rain came as I was driving  out of Belfast and got heavier as I approached home. I was happy to het home dry with my change of clothing still in my bag.

I took 758 photographs and  239 keepers posted on my website.

My camera setting at the beginning were ISO 160, f2.8 and 1/2000th second and at the finish were ISO 800, f3.2 and shutter speed 1/1600th second.

I attended the East Down Point to Point Steeplechases on Saturday 25th January 2020 at Tyrella which is near Downpatrick and is overlooked by the Mourne Mountains. It is a scenic course with the mountains as a backdrop on a clear day. Occasonally there is snow on the peaks of Slieve Donard , the highest mountain in Northern Ireland at 850m. Unfortunately the horses are running towards the Mournes which means in order to include the mountains to horses are running away from the camera not towards.

It was dry day, dull and cold with a medium breeze and there was a good turnout. It was my first proper photographic outing since I was at Maralin in May 2019 because of a hip problem and subsequent operation in September but after a cautious start for the first three races I was able to move around almost normally for the last three - getting to the last fence and also the parade ring for the presentations.

I was pleased with my progress. 

See photographs at: https://www.hmphotographs.com/p979756747

AA1V7637"01st THE GREAT WHITE and J C Gainford ( 21 , PINK & YELLOW CHECK; pink sleeves; yellow cap ) Trainer: Warren Ewing,, Owner : Warren Ewing"

I attended 12 events in 2019 as follows: 10 Horses Racing and Point to Points and 2 Golf events.

I had 91 photographs published in various newspaper -  local, 2 national and 1 international.

The Horse events were: 

• 2 Down Royal
• 2 Downpatrick
• 1 Armagh P2P
• 2 Kirkistown P2P
• 1 Maralin P2P
• 2 Tyrella P2P

The two golf events were at the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Portrush in July.

The number of visitors to my site for the year was 1955 and site page views were  28,585.

The visitors came from 71 countries.

My year was restricted because of a hip problem - see separate post .

I attended the following 12 events in the early part of 2019.

This was a shorter than normal list as I had been persevering with a hip problem for some time which was slowly reducing my mobility to the point were I was unable to attend events from April.

I managed to attend the Open Golf Championship in July with the aid of a crutch and got some images but was unable to move around the course to any degree so photographs were taken from limited viewpoints. I was unable to get to the new holes or any of the holes near the sea which was where the scenic images were.

I had a full hip replacement operation in September 2019 and hope to be back to full fitness for the 2020 season.  

The Forty Thousandth (40,000) visitor accessed my site today - Tuesday 14th January 2020. This has been a major goal.

Zenfolio records all access requests related to your account, and makes this statistical information available to you in real time for each photograph, gallery, group, and account overall.

A gallery is counted to have a visitor if at least one full size photo from it is viewed (viewing of thumbnails does not count). It's important to realise if the same visitor looks at another photo in the same gallery, only the photo counter will be incremented but not the gallery counter.

A photographer's "visitors" are a sum of all unique visitors to his or her photographs. The number of unique visitors determines your popularity, as well as the popularity of any gallery or photograph.

I joined Zenfolio in February 2010 after using a number of other website providers.

I first began posting photographs to the web in 2006 and used a provider called Beanpix which met most of my needs but it went out of business. I then joined Fotopic which also met my requirements but again it went out of business. Whilst using these two services I used Clikpic which I liked but I needed a facility which allowed me to load 1000s of photographs which Clikpic did not provide for.

A year before Fotopic went out of business I began to use Zenfolio as I could see the writing on the wall for Fotopic - slow response to problems. unexpected downtime, delays in producing prints, until eventually it just went off the air.

I try to annotate all my photographs and all my time spent uploading and annotating photographs  - hundreds of hours - on Beanpix and Fotopic was lost- a very annoying experience.

This image of 16 year old Rory McIlroy leaving the 18th green at Royal Portrush Golf Club in 2005 was the most viewed image on my site in 2019.

Rory birdied this hole to score 61 to break the record for the course. He shot 33 on the front nine and 28 on the back nine and had 26 putts.

The course layout was changed for the 2019 Open - 2 new holes were added with the old 17th and 18th being replaced - so a new record exists for the new course layout. Rory's record will therefore never be beaten.

Rory McIlroy leaves the green after beating the course record at Royal Portrush during the qualifying round of the 2005 North of Ireland Amateur Championship - IMG_1478-e3Sixteen year old Rory McIlroy on the 18th green at Royal Portrush during the qualifying round of the 2005 North of Ireland Amateur Open Championship after breaking the course record with a round of 61. McIlroy scored 33 out and 28 back and had 26 putts.

This image shows Steve Ovett at the start of the 1978 International Cross Country Race at Mallusk near Belfast. Steve won the race in 24 minutes 8 seconds. The image is the most viewed on my site for the period 2010 to 2019.Steve went on th win the 800m Olympic Gold Medal at Moscow in 1980.

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry3508YPyew
 

The start - IMG_0004 (2)-e2Steve Ovett (16) eventual winner in 24.08.
Left of picture - Nat Muir (22?) ??