Mid 2019 I have started contributing photos that I took to Unsplash. Unsplash is my main goto resource to spice up presentations, documents and talks. I even use it as a resource to put sample photos into the applications I build (when not using picsum.photos or placekitten). Over the years, I have used hundreds of photos that individual photographers all over the world have made, edited and contributed to the ever-growing Unsplash library. It was about time to give back some of the photos that I took over the years. The photos are not only on Unsplash, but also available on my website in the photography section.

The Numbers

What I personally find pretty astonishing are the views and download numbers by Unsplash. While I don’t actively promote my photos (except occasionally on Twitter where I don’t have a photography audience) the numbers Unsplash shows are quite impressive. Unsplash is pretty good at showing the pictures to the right audience. So far, my photos have been viewed nearly half a million times since I uploaded the first photo around 7 months ago:

While the combined views look quite impressive, things are slightly different for the individual images. Half of the ~50 images I have contributed have less than 200 views each. I assume those photos without a significant amount of views are not showing up in Unsplash search results, as I consider that the main source of views of the photos. The other half of the uploaded photos have more than 10.000 views each, with one photo having even more than 70.000 views (amounting to ~16% of my total views). Conversely, the photo with the most views has the lowest ratio of views to downloads, which I interpret as it showing up in search results quite often but not being too relevant for what people are looking for.

The Future

Personally, I very much enjoy becoming a contributor to the Unsplash platform, especially as I have used lots and lots of photos before. So far, I don’t go on photography trips to produce photos specifically to publish on Unsplash. Instead, I take photos during travels or weekend getaways and upload the ones I deem appropriate to make publicly available. That means I don’t have a huge time investment in publishing photos to Unsplash, which is definitely a necessity for me to continue publishing photos.

Throughout the course of the year, I will every now and then publish more photos. For now, I will not settle on a fixed publishing rate or any goals. So stay tuned for the next images and if you like the photos, make sure to also follow me on Unsplash.