A while back I joined a Facebook group: The Hudson Valley in Pictures. One of the first pictures I posted got what seemed to me to be a very large number of “likes” (probably because the groups I usually belong too are much smaller than this one). This was pleasing. However, as I looked at the group more I noticed that while there are some extremely good pictures, there are also many that are quite mediocre – including some that got more “likes” than mine. This was a bit of a “downer” and I stopped posting to the group for a while. Recently I saw a picture of a few deer at the side of a road. It wasn’t particularly well exposed, or composed but it had a large number of “likes”. So I thought I’d post the color version of the above picture, a not too startling shot I’d taken at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – just to see how it would do.

Now intellectually I know that the number of “likes” has little to do with the intrinsic worth of the photograph. However, as the notifications started coming in fast and furious I couldn’t help but feel my enthusiasm getting going. Would they keep going up? Would it surpass my previously best “liked” picture (it hasn’t done so far. After a fast start it seems to have stopped short of my record).

Silly isn’t it?