It's the time of year. Time flies. The most viewed posts of 2017 on The Travel Photographer blog are:
1. POV : Can The X-Pro2 Do The Job Of The GFX 50S? of January 8 in which I share my ambivalence about acquiring this -at the time- new camera, while owning the X-Pro2 and a bevy of lenses...and questioning whether the return on investing in a GFX 50S would be worth it. Would the quality of the GFX 50S surpass that of the X-Pro2 by such a factor that it justifies its $8000 expenditure? It seems many of my blog's followers and other readers were interested in the same question, and that boosted this post to very top of the popularity totem pole....and by a substantial margin.
As readers of this blog know, I did get the Fuji GFX50s and its 63mm lens a few months later, and haven't regretted it in the least. Quite to the contrary, I have fallen for it (as I have for the X-Pro2 before it) especially doing the "fashion-lifestyle-travel" type of photograph that I'm interested in.
2. The Legend of The Purple Hairpin | X-Pro2 of July 26 was the surprising second most viewed post. I call it surprising because I never expected Chinese opera would have much traction among readers of this blog. However, I am guessing that the post went sort of "viral" among the NYC Cantonese community involved in these shows.
The post links to a gallery of images I made at the Chinese Community Center's theater on Mott Street (NYC) of a famous Cantonese opera about a love story that occurs during the Tang Dynasty. To photograph the performance, I used my Fuji X-Pro2 and the Fujinon XF 18-135 F3.5-5.6 OIS WR (the equivalent of a 28-200mm) that gave me the reach I needed.
3. Mercer Street With the X-Pro2 of February 4 was the third most viewed, and the reason why is a little unclear. However, in the post I write of my style of street photography, roaming the cobblestoned streets of SoHo in NYC with my Fuji X-Pro2 and its 18mm f2.0 dangling from my neck and shooting from the hip... so perhaps that is what attracted the eyeballs. It could've also been linked to by one or more of the Fuji aggregators that have a fervent readership base.
4. An Afternoon With The Chinese Opera of May 22 comes in fourth place on the popularity totem pole. This again is very surprising for the reason I mention earlier.
The post describes my difficulties in getting access to the back stage of the auditorium/theater in NYC's Mott Street. It was my first time there, and had no contacts to help me out....so had to photograph the perfromers from my seat. The X-Pro2 fitted with the 18-135mm Fujinon lens was just perfect to capture the action, and I had no need to stand or move to another location within the room.
5. Ania Błażejewska | Balinese Idyll of January 12 rounds up the list as the fifth most popular post....and deservedly makes it on this list.
As I wrote on the post, Ania Błażejewska's Balinese Idyll is of scenes with models to represent life on the island as it was many years ago, before becoming a tourist destination. Her photographs are tasteful and luminescent, and the models chosen for this particular photo shoot are just gorgeous.
I must reiterate my surprise that four of the five most popular posts are of my work. It has been the norm in recent years that the most popular were of other photographers...and deservedly so, as I feature many excellent galleries to The Travel Photographer blog.
Perhaps a fluke...so let's wait for next year's most popular!
