Best 9 of 2022 - Instagram vs. Reality

The last few years I have shared a Best 9 of the year overview of the most liked photos on Instagram. But only last year I did share a second Best 9 list with photos that are my personal best photos, not only in composition or quality or effort, but also in regards to emotional value. So here’s an overview of both Best 9 photos of 2022 on Instagram, starting with most likes.

I was able to tick off some bucket list shots in Berlin this year, especially at Theodor Heuss Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, but let’s have a detailed look.

The first two were rather accidentally successful to be honest. In July, I joined a morning cruise on the Spree with @schoenemorgenwalk starting at 4:45 am in the morning. It was a beautiful ride with lots of other nice photographers, and I got some nice photos, too, such as the two photos of Berlin Cathedral mirroring in the calm river.

Also twice on the best 9: Sunrise at the Brandenburg Gate, seen from the Victory Column which makes the sun look big compared to the Gate. Number 9 was also taken at the Gate, shortly after the other 2 images, as I drove to the front of the Gate to take some close up shots with the sun still rising behind it. All of them were shot on one day end of March. I came back in September, but wasn’t as lucky with the weather.

The image with the third most likes on Instagram was a special sunrise at Theodor Heuss Platz, with the sun rising behind the TV Tower. I was pretty lucky with the weather, and not many photographers were there to capture that beautiful moment. This was just a few days after the shots from Brandenburg Gate. I had some troubles with the exposure as it was a pretty dynamic scene and the clouds around the sun were very bright, so these parts of the image burned a little, but it still looks great in my view and so was the feedback on Instagram. I came back in September and got a cleaner image of the sun behind the TV Tower, but that shot similar to everything else posted in the second half of 2022 wasn’t as successful on Instagram.

Number 4 and 5 are a bit different: Starting with a beautiful sunrise at Eberswalder Straße close to my home. I came back a couple of times and will do so in the future as well. The time span of taking photos there is much bigger and you can get a lot of different angles and compositions throughout. This one was taken from the stairs leading to the U Bahn station and the sun was just peaking around the corner. Beautiful spot to take photos at sunrise! Number 5, the City West shot took a lot of effort compared to the other ones, as I had to come back 4-5 times because the sun was at the wrong position or just behind some clouds. I also underestimated the buildings blocking the sun, so there was only a short time frame of a few days where you could get that photo, so I’m very happy with the result, and it’s a photo I haven’t really seen on the Gram before, in contrast to the other ones.

Last but not least, and ranking 7 on Instagram, is a photo I took in December on a short walk through Mitte. I only had a prime lens (Sony 20mm F1.8) with me so I had to look for compositions working with that field of view, and this was one of them. Didn’t expect it to be on that list, but I won’t complain of course. I really liked having the stairs in the middle of Cathedral and TV Tower, so I was waiting for someone to go up or down. Luckily, it only took a few minutes until someone with a Christmas hat came along.

If you look at these images though, it shows what is „successful“ on this platform for my account, but it’s not very diverse. As I’ve gotten many buckets shots this year, I will try to add new locations and perspectives to my feed that will not always feature the TV Tower or the other classics. I will also try to do new things that I haven’t seen much on this platform yet, similar to the star (trail) images I‘ve shared on Instagram this year or „new“ full moon compositions. 

Let’s see how Instagram will support that kind of stuff. What I’ve been seeing recently is that reach and growth are down a lot compared to the first half of 2022, but likes to reach relation is way better these days. Best example is the photo I shared on Christmas Day which ranks 7 in terms of likes but 18 in reach with only half or even a third of the reach of the other 8 images. It’s also one of 2 photos in the best 9 shared in the second half of 2022. 

Of course, numbers are not really important (I do love numbers and statistics though) and I‘m not doing photography for Instagram, but I won’t mind if reach and growth will go up again so it‘ll be more fun and rewarding to post on this platform.

So this is my personal Best 9 compilation, and in contrast to the Instagram one this isn’t ranked at all. Let’s go through.

There’s just one image that was on the Instagram collection as well, which is a shot of the Brandenburg Gate at sunrise.

The second shot is from a helicopter ride I got as a birthday gift this year. It was a short (20min) but also amazing experience and photo opportunity, and I got a few really good photos from it that you can find on my page.

The third photo was taken in the Italian Dolomites. I’ve been wanting to hike the Tre Cime trail for a while, and this year we finally did it together with our dog. I had a couple of shots in mind for that trip (e.g. Alpe di Suisi and Seceda) and did all the hikes and got all the photos I wanted, so it was a great trip after all. Will share details here soon on the travel page.

The 4th photo is my first ever image with the Sony A7IV, and it was taken a day before my birthday. I took a whole timelapse of the moon rising behind the TV Tower which really opened new opportunities for me. I took a lot of moon photos and timelapses (moon and sun) after that.

Number 5 is not only a bilboard, it’s a bilboard with my photo on it. I applied with this photo to be a part of dubistamzug. They put 1500 images and texts like quotes or poems on bilboards around Berlin to see how it will impact the city and their citizens. What a great cause and I was really happy to be chosen and see my photo on a bilboard in Berlin.

The 6th photo was taken at sunrise from Drachenberg. I actually have that photo twice, as I saw the sun rising behind the TV Tower in April and September this year. In April, I took a wider timelapse, but it was too wide to get a clean image with that specific composition as well, so I came back in September to focus on photography and take this shot again with better quality and detail. A bucket shot less on my list!

Number 7 is a photo I envisioned in summer this year. We came to the island of Rügen a couple of times this year, and I am really into milky way photography, so it only made sense to take a milky way shot with the chalk cliffs on the island. We had a very good week in August with lots of clear skies, so when the forecast looked best I decided to go. It was a bit scary to wander through the forest in the dark and stay there for 2 hours as I wanted to take a star trail image as well, but it was well worth the effort, especially since I haven’t seen a similar image so far.

Photo 8 is an image I wanted to take for a while. I went on a trip to Northern Norway to see the Northern Lights in 2019, but we did not have much look. We saw the lights, sure, but only 2 days and only one of them good enough to see them with our own eyes. Nothing compared to our Iceland trip this year though. We had multiple days with Northern Lights, and one of them was pretty epic all night. The first night we saw them, the forecast was pretty good for Stokksness, the image I had in mind coming to Iceland, but we were 650km away. So we drove all day and it was all worth it when we came to Stokksness and saw the Northern Lights above the mountains. Awesome! I prefer the landscape version of the photo, but of course I shared a vertical photo on Instagram. Will share the landscape one on the travel page soon, of course.

Last but not least, an image I did not think was possible, but due to Energy saving light pollution went down, so when I saw more and more stars on the night walk with our dog, as well as photos with stars from the Festival of Lights, I knew I wanted to shoot some stars at Berlin Cathedral. And it turned out pretty well! I went back into the city to shoot some more locations, such as the Reichstag building, and I will do some more in January as soon as we have some clear skies in the city.

Thanks for reading and let me know which is your favourite on Instagram! Thanks for your support and Happy New Year!

Thomas