I made Flickr Explore!!!

When I went to bed last night I didn't silence my phone. I forgot, and normally when I do that, the notifications are few and far between during the over night hours. But last night, my phone beeped and buzzed quite a bit (it still is many hours later). Enough so it woke me up about 3am. I grabbed my phone, found my glasses and saw I had a bajillion Flickr notifications. Recently I have been adding lots of photos and it is not uncommon for someone to find my work and favorite several photos in a row. But this was not that, one photo I had posted recently was suddenly receiving a ton of likes. When I investigated, I found it had been added to Flickr's Explore page for June 26th.

This is my 2nd Explore in my 12 years on Flickr. The first time was 8-9 years ago with my photo of Solsbury Hill in England, but that photo has since been removed, re-edited and uploaded again, so no proof exists of that 1st award. I really didn't understand it then, I thought it was just like any old group invite. Anyway, now I do, but didn't know exactly what it was. A quick Google search revealed this --> "Explore is Flickr's automated attempt to show you the most awesome photos on Flickr. Explore showcases 500 photos per day, said to be about 0.005% of the daily upload volume."

As I am typing this post, 11 hours after being congratulated by Flickr, the photo has over 2500 views and 65 likes! Easily my most liked photo, ever. I am excited to see what the final tally will be. If you don't want to visit Flickr, here's the photo in question.